Immortal Issues
by MewShiny
Summary: With Shinichi's help Kaito learns something about himself that makes his life turn upside down, now he must face the truth that he's been living a lie and deal with all the problems that come from it.
1. A prolouge

**Ok, so this is a one-shot that I wrote because I had a dream (weird dream... fire-breathing turtles... be glad I made this coherent), and because I was asked to expand the one-shot so now this is the prologue of a full story.  
Syrus07 will be helping with the story.  
**

**I hope you enjoy, and please review because feedback always helps.~  
**

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"Tantei-kun... No, Conan... No, Shinichi..." Said the person on the other end of the phone, "I need your help."

Shinichi instantly regretted picking up the phone. It was obvious who was on the other end but regardless -if only to deny reality- he asked anyway, "Er... who are you?"

"Kudo Shinichi, be serious. I really need your help here," the other person sounded desperate and annoyed as they replied.

Shinichi sighed, he'd heard this voice taunting him many times since he'd been turned into a child, it was so similar to his own voice from when he was a teenager that he couldn't stand to hear it from someone that could be considered his opposite. Yes, He knew the owner of the voice well enough that asking had only been a waste of time. It would be even more useless to ask how this person managed to get his cell phone number.

"What could you possibly need my help for, Kid," Shinichi replied as he gritted his teeth in annoyance. That's not to say that he wasn't somewhat worried that the thief may have gotten himself into a bit of trouble, in fact his worry increased nearly tenfold when the white-clad phantom on the other line seemed to be hesitant to tell Shinichi what it was he needed help with.

"You've noticed haven't you..." The thief started, "That I'm looking for a certain gem... right?"

"Yes, I have," the detective confirmed. It was true, he'd realized that anytime Kaitou Kid stole a gem he would hold it up to the moon and often he would wind up saying 'this isn't the gem I'm looking for', or something along those lines. Though he still wasn't sure what the thief was looking for or expecting to happen, and it would be a lie to say he wasn't curious.

Shinichi didn't have much time to think before Kid continued, "The gem I'm looking for is known as Pandora. It's a gem said to shed tears of immortality when the volley comet passes..."

"You're searching for immortality?" Shinichi interrupted. He was surprised, it was one of the last things he would have expected the playful thief to be interested in; if anything he would have suspected that the thief was already immortal before he would up suspecting he was searching for a way to become immortal.

"No, I want to destroy Pandora," The detective's counterpart explained his tone growing more and more annoyed, "there are other people after it, those people killed my father so I want to destroy it before those people can get their hands on it."

_Sounds reasonable enough, _Shinichi thought as he listened, and when the gentleman thief finally finished he asked, "So what is it you're asking me to do?"

The thief sighed, "As I said, I've already checked almost every gem I can find but it seems like none of them are it, I'm starting to worry that I might never find it on my own..."

Shinichi interrupted again, "I don't see how any of this is my problem."

"I just want you to help me find Pandora, I'm not asking you to steal or fight against the people that are after Pandora with me. In fact after I destroy it I'll even let you turn me in if you want."

Perhaps it was the thief's sincere tone that made Shinichi want to help, maybe it was because he understood the feeling of fighting against an evil organization alone, or maybe it was just because he didn't want someone with such a similar face and voice to be struggling on his own. If you asked Shinichi he wouldn't be able to tell you exactly why it was he wanted to help, only that he did.

The pint-sized detective sighed as he gave in, "I'll do what I can."

If nothing else the thief's excited voice coming through the phone made Shinichi feel as though he was doing the right thing, "Great! I knew I could count on you Tantei-kun! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You won't regret this, I promise! Oh, thank you so much!"

...

One months has passed since then.

This time it was Shinichi that called Kid, "Listen, I've looked everywhere I can think of for information, and everything is leading to the conclusion that the original Kaitou Kid -your father- found Pandora and he either destroyed it or hid it well enough that it'll likely never be found."

Kid listened carefully but he'd already heard this much before, but at that time he asked Shinichi to check again to make sure- and now that appeared to be the case. The thief replied after giving a bit of thought, "but if there's any possibility that it hasn't bee destroyed then I want to find it so I can destroy it myself."

Shinichi had already predicted that he would respond like that, the thief's simpleminded determination made his fairly easy to read, so naturally he was already prepared to respond, "I have found some information that may be of interest."

"Ah-re? Then why didn't you say so in the first place?"

The detective rolled his eyes -of course over the phone the thief had no way of knowing this- he had predicted that response too. As he wished that the thief could be as predictable during heists as he was over the phone Shinichi replied, giving the information rather than answering the question, "On the night that your father died eight years ago in a stage accident... the volley comet passed over Japan..."

"You're not trying to say that Dad didn't actually die and that he became immortal instead are you?" Kid interrupted sounding somewhat annoyed, "Because that definitely didn't happen, if he was alive then he definitely would have come back to see me and Mom!"

Shinichi tried to smile but quickly gave up because he knew the thief couldn't see him over the phone anyway, he sighed and spoke in a sad tone, "Some of the intel I managed to collect about Pandora says that if someone drinks the tears of immortality then they'll 'return to their youth'. If that's true then..."

For a moment neither of them spoke. Kid knew exactly what Shinichi was implying may have happened, even if it was a stretch it didn't seem impossible, and Kid didn't like the sound of it.

"So you're saying he got younger?" The thief asked, thinking it would be better to let the detective explain the rest -it would sound much more rational that way.

"Right, he drank the tears of immortality and as a side effect he became younger. The shock of de-aging must have caused him to create false memories in order to deny reality," Shinichi explained in a very detective-y tone, "And he returned to his wife as a son."

The phone fell out of Kid's hand and to the floor as the usually calm and collected thief put his hands to his ears as though the motion would make things make sense. Just listening to Shinichi's theory had made images flash through his mind -images of things he didn't remember and things he never should have seen, things that would have been impossible for him to have seen.

"I'm sorry..." Shinichi muttered after hearing the sound of Kid's phone clattering on the floor. He was about to hang up and give the thief some time to think things over when he heard the sound of the phone being picked up off the floor and the faint breathing of the thief on the other end.

All of a sudden the thief broke out laughing, it was several minutes before he'd calmed down enough to talk, "You're right... about everything... Dad was... I am..."

The thief continued his mental breakdown for about a minute before Shinichi interrupted, "In that case, I believe I know what happened to Pandora."

This caught Kid's attention.

"The poison that made me shrink was modeled after the tears of immortality that are shed by Pandora, so it's only reasonable to assume that the gem fell into the hands of the organization that poisoned me..." Shinichi trailed off, "The scientist that developed the poison betrayed the organization and is now one of my allies, when I tried asking her about all of this she reached into her pocket and pulled out a large crystal and asked me 'is this the gem you're referring you?'."

Kid's eyes widened, "No way... you have it then?"

"Yeah... unless this isn't actually it..."

The two sat in silence for a while, they both knew that they'd found the real thing, they didn't ever have to steal to get it. In fact Kid had been wasting his time all along, he should have asked for Shinichi's help earlier.

"But what will happen to you..." Kid asked hesitantly.

"The scientist I mentioned before said that I'd probably age normally until I returned to my original age and that I might not age past that..." Shinichi replied.

Kid let out a quiet snicker, "Then I guess I'll be seeing you around, Tantei-kun."


	2. The enemy of womankind

**I do not own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito... and the way that this is going I'm not sure I own common sense either... *clears throat* well... anyway I hope you like this story (Me and Syrus07 spent a lot of time coming up with it), and please review (for my sake)  
**

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Ever since he'd talked to Shinichi on the phone Kaito... no Touchi had been remembering things. Just about anything he looked at he could find a memory related to it, a memory that didn't belong to 'Kaito'. Even so he really didn't feel any different. He still saw himself as being Kuroba Kaito even though he knew that wasn't who he really was.

Sighing, he sat down on a park bench. He had been out shopping to re-stock his supply of playing cards when Shinichi had called, and he was done shopping now, but he didn't really feel like going home. That's not to say he thought he could stay away forever, he was going to have to talk to his mother... er wife eventually, and it's not as though he had anywhere else to go.

But what was he supposed to do? Just walk through the door and say 'Honey I'm home'... that would seem weird, even weirder than how he usually was. He figured that he could try to hide it and just act as though nothing's changed, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep things from becoming awkward between the two of them. Whether he told her that he realized who he really was or not he would still be stuck between acting like the son he'd been for eight years and the husband he'd been long before that.

For a moment he thought that maybe it would be best to go to Shinichi's house and just avoid his mom/wife until he managed to sort out his feelings or at the very least his memories. He pushed the idea aside, not wanting to impose on Shinichi, but as the sun started to set he decided that he really needed to get away from home for just one night at least.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, and dialed the now familiar number.

"Hello?" The child on the other end of the phone greeted curiously, he clearly hadn't looked at the caller ID before answering the phone.

"Oi, Tantei-kun, can I stay at your house?"

"Eh? Kid? Why would you want to?" The child detective responded, "Besides there's someone living there right now so you..."

"It doesn't matter if there's someone else there," Kaito/Touchi sighed, "I just need some time away from people I know... to clear my thoughts for a bit."

"But the person living there is..."

"It should be fine as long as I disguise myself as you, right?" Kaito/Touchi asked.

Shinichi hesitated, "That wouldn't really solve the problem..."

Still Shinichi didn't really want to tell Kid that the person currently living in his house was a member of the FBI -though the other members of the FBI currently think he's dead- not to mention that person knows that Kudo Shinichi is currently Edogawa Conan. If Kid went in disguised as Shinichi it would be a disaster for the internationally wanted thief.

"The person living in my house knows that I'm Conan right now, it'd be better to go as yourself if you don't want to be asked weird questions," Shinichi finally said with an annoyed sigh.

"Alright, I'll go as myself then," The thief replied decidedly, as he hung up the phone he muttered to himself, "...whoever that is."

And so with no where else to go he sighed and headed towards the Kudo residence as he began dialing again.

"Hey... Mom. I'm done shopping but something's come up so I'll be staying at a friend's house tonight... No not Aoko... ok I'll call you again later," He said, hanging up within moments.

...

When Kaito (he continued to refer to himself as Kaito because he wasn't sure he would react to his real name) knocked on the door of the Kudo residence he was -of course- greeted by none other that Okiya Subaru, who was clearly suspicious of him on sight.

"Hello," the supposed engineering student greeted, "who might you be?"

Kaito smiled, "Kuroba Kaito. There's some drama going on at my house so Shinichi-kun told me I could stay here for the night. I'll try not to bother you... um?"

"Subaru, Okiya Subaru."

"Subaru-san then?" Kaito asked when the man in question nodded that that would be fine Kaito continued, "I'll try not to bother you then, Subaru-san."

True to his word Kaito didn't pull any of his usual tricks on Subaru and instead went up the stairs to find an empty guest room, spending his time alone trying to decide what to do about himself.

As it was he'd already been living a lie for the past eight years, not only had he obtained immortality -which he hadn't particularly wanted in the first place- he'd died in the eyes of society and since then taken on the identity of his son.

It was the last bit that concerned him the most, his son. Did he even _have_ a son? If so what had happened to him, it's not like a person can just disappear from existence just because someone has shown up to take their place. If there really was a Kuroba Kaito where has he been for the past eight years? Then again it's possible that there was no _real_ Kuroba Kaito and he was just over-thinking things.

If they really did have a real son then their son had either died and no one noticed because he'd been replaced by his supposedly dead father, or perhaps his mom/wife had hidden the child (or possibly hidden the fact that he'd died) and knew that the teenager she was currently taking care of was in fact her husband. If the later was the case then he wouldn't know how to face her after having spent so long acting like the child he'd become while she would have been able to see the man she married underneath knowing he was alive but unable to talk to him as his wife.

Thinking about his situation was beginning to feel convicting so he let his mind wander for a bit if only to take his mind away from how he'd been hurting the woman he loved... loves...

"Wait a second... I like Aoko..." he murmured to himself, fully aware that blush was creeping across his face, "But I'm married... is this an affair? It doesn't count... right?"

He thought back on the past eight years and realized just how much flirting he'd done as 'Kuroba Kaito'. His blush grew redder, covering his face completely.

"I am the enemy of womankind."

"Well at least you understand," a familiar child's voice interrupted just as Kaito was about to start banging his head against the guest room walls.

"Ah-re? !" Kaito's eyes widened, his face becoming pale as he turned around slowly, "Wha-when did you get here? !"

"Around 'but I'm married'," The child detective said in a tone that hinted that he was curious but realized that it would be better not to ask what the thief had been talking about.

"W-what are you doing here? !" the thief couldn't keep the hint of panic out of his voice as he spoke.

"It's my house."

For a moment both of then looked at each other in silence.

Finally Conan sighed and spoke up, "something pretty serious must've happened if you want to stay here instead of going back to your own home, I figured you might need someone to talk to..."

Kaito sighed and sat down on the bed, after a short moment of silence he pointed at the spot on the bed next to him, "You'll probably want to sit down for this..."

Conan nodded and hesitantly took the thief's advice.

"I'm just not sure what to do about my mom... I mean my wife," Kaito said, somehow managing to keep a straight face, "I mean, for the past eight years I've been her son, and now that I know I'm not I have no idea how I should act around her!"

Conan couldn't help but think that all of this sounded like the plot out of a poorly written shojo manga, but more than anything else he wondered why it was him that was given the task of helping someone old enough to be his father with their relationship issues -it's not like he'd ever been that good at taking care of problems in his own relationships, much less those of others.

To avoid saying anything that might make the situation worse Conan decided to go with the tried and true line, "and how does that make you feel?"

"Conflicted. I feel really bad because I'm alive and she either thinks I'm dead or knows I'm alive but can't talk to me or doing anything wife-y with me because I've thought that I was our son for the past eight years... but even now I don't remember much of being Kuroba Touchi, I'm still Kuroba Kaito on the inside so I don't want to make everything awkward between us because I still think of her as my mom even though we're married..." Kaito explained as he waved his hands around to show just how frustrated he was by all of this, "Not to mention I'm in love with my childhood friend ... er Kaito's childhood friend, but now that I know that I'm old enough to be her father..."

"Er... I see..." Conan managed to say, because he honestly did understand just how awkward it must feel as he himself had been shrunken and had actually grown used to his childhood friend treating him like a little brother even though he was actually older while she had no idea that he was almost always by her side. Conan was about to try to give him some advice out of sympaty but Kaito suddenly shot up.

"Oh, I see!"

Conan wondered exactly what it was he had seen.

The magician thief laughed, "I should tell her how I feel!"

Conan's face turned into a deadpan expression as he watched the thief rush out of the room, only to come back moments later and hug the child detective tightly.

"Thanks a lot Shinichi, you really helped me out a ton just now!" The thief said as he let go of his chibi detective counterpart, "I've gotta go reconcile with my wife now, so I'll see you later, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer the thief once again ran out of the room, leaving the detective sitting on the bed alone blinking.

"What just happened..."


	3. I'll wait for you

**Don't really have anything to say this time, so I hope you enjoy the story, and please review because it will make me really happy.**

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"Oh, Kai-chan you're home?" his mom/wife remarked, "I thought you said you were going to be staying over at a friends house tonight? Did you forget something?"

Kaito/Toichi panted because he'd run the entire way from Shinichi's house,"Not 'forget'... 'remembered'."

"You 'remembered'... something then?" She asked, sounding uncertain if not hopeful.

"Yeah, I remembered something pretty important," He said, somehow managing to keep his poker face even though he was a mess of emotions on the inside, "I was hoping we could talk about it..."

"What is it Kai-chan?"

"I'm dad... I mean, I'm Toichi," he finally managed to say after what felt like forever.

His wife-turned-mother let out a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a sigh of relief.

He didn't really give her any time to speak before he continued, "I only remember bits and pieces right now... but I know who I am now and I figured you should know..."

He was cut off when she came up and hugged him without saying a word, his mind went blank the moment he felt her arms wrapping around him. He couldn't see her face but a warm trickle down his back let him know that she was crying. Kaito tried to return her embrace but it seemed meaningless coming from him.

"I'm sorry, mom... I mean Chikage... I..."

Finally she let go of him. She looked at him with a sorrowful smile as she wiped the tears off her face, "It's alright... I understand. You don't have to force yourself to think of me as your wife."

He returned the smile, but like the hug it only felt superficial.

"Sorry, after eight years of being your son I've..." He didn't really know how to finish that sentence so he changed the subject to yet another awkward topic, "... and because I don't remember much of myself... I can't help but think of you as my mom..."

She kissed him on the cheek, "Don't worry about it. I've been waiting eight years for you, I can wait a little longer."

Kaito blushed, she giggled at him like it was the most adorable thing she'd ever seen.

"I'll wait, but next time you have to kiss me, okay?"

And with that she walked away, not giving him the time to respond.

...

The next day in school Kaito sat in his desk quietly doing nothing that could be considered typical Kaito behavior; he had yet to ever try to peak at Aoko's underwear, or prank anyone in the class. All he had done since arriving at school was sit still with a thoughtful expression on his face, he would reply whenever anyone tried talking to him but for the most part he remained silent. Naturally, all of his classmates had the growing feeling that this was the calm before the storm, that he was probably waiting for something to happen so he could pull off an amazing prank of some sort.

Aoko and Hakuba were the only ones that were the least bit worried that there was something wrong with Kaito, but despite being worried they waited until lunch break to try asking him what was wrong.

Aoko was the first to speak, "Kaito is something wrong?"

He looked up at her for a moment without saying anything.

He knew couldn't just say 'I just figured out that I'm actually my father and I've been remembering things from the first time I was in high school all day,' so he went with the reasonable and honest reply of, "Nothing, I was just thinking about something..."

"And what were you thinking about, pray tell?" Hakuba asked, his tone half worried and half serious.

Again Kaito decided to answer honestly without really telling them anything, "the past."

Hakuba found it annoying that Kaito was able to so aggravating despite being clearly depressed, so his natural response was trying a more straightforward approach, "Look, it's obvious that something's wrong, why won't you just tell us what it is?"

Kaito smirked, hiding all his emotions behind his familiar poker face, "I'm not telling~"

Hakuba frowned, he could already tell where this was going. As if on cue a brightly colored puff of smoke appeared and by the time it cleared Hakuba's hair was no longer blond, but rather periwinkle -removing any doubts that their classmates may have had that something was wrong with Kaito. However Hakuba and Aoko were both still rather worried about him, even more now that he was obviously trying to act like nothing was wrong.

From that point on he continued to prank his classmates as per usual, however he still did not make any attempts at flipping Aoko's skirt as he felt it would be weird now that he knew he was actually married. By the time the day ended everyone forgot about how strangely Kaito had been acting, except -of course- Hakuba and Aoko. The later of the two decided it would be best to wait until Kaito was ready to tell her himself.

Hakuba on the other hand was a detective and as all detectives are was naturally curious about the mysterious behavior that Kaito was exhibiting, so he took it upon himself to investigate.

Having followed the magician home with amazing stealth, as they arrived outside the Kuroba residence Hakuba hid himself in a tree next to one of the windows so he would be able to hear most anything either of the inhabitants said.

"I'm home from school, Chikage," Kaito proclaimed loudly as he walked through the door, earning a confused eyebrow raise from Hakuba. Hakuba figured he must have heard wrong so he scooted himself forward on the limb he was sitting on in hopes of finding a better position for listening.

"So, how was your day, Honey?"

Hakuba could only assume that the person talking was Kaito's mother, but it didn't make any sense, the way that they were talking to each other followed a pattern more that of a married couple than a mother and son. He arrived at the conclusion that the Kuroba family was rather strange.

"I managed to remember a lot of boring stuff from my high school days," Kaito sighed, "Nothing about you I'm afraid."

"But it's great that you've remembered a bit about your youth! I'm sure you'll be able to remember our wedding before you know it," Chikage said doing a cheerful fist-pump at her husband-turned-son's small victory.

If Hakuba had been drinking anything at the time he would have spit it out at hearing what they were saying. He was in awe at the fact that this motherly figure seemed to be implying that she and Kaito were married, not to mention that Kaito seemed to be going along with the whole charade.

Suddenly there was a loud sound of cracking. Hakuba's head swiveled back just in time to see that the limb he was sitting on was about to snap right off the tree, "oh, Bloody-"

_Snap._

The loud sound produced by the snapping limb accompanied by the British detective cursing as he fell to the ground (which was punctuated by a loud thud) did not go unnoticed by the residents of the house he'd been watching so they immediately rushed to the window to see what had produced such a racket.

"Hakuba? ! What are you doing here? !"


	4. An insane truth

**A few secrets will be revealed. You will be surprised... probably. It was Syrus07 that thought up this particular plot twist ^v^ isn't it great?**

**I hope you enjoy, pleeeeaase review!  
**

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Hakuba had no excuse for having been in a tree besides the truth that he had been spying on Kaito in attempts to figure out what was wrong with him. So explained this to them with a strained smile and expected the worst, he did not however, expect that they would understand completely and let him come inside so that they could treat the ankle that he had sprained upon falling out of the tree.

Now that Hakuba's ankle had been treated he was sitting across from the odd pair in their living room as they sipped tea, he'd been offered tea himself but he had yet to touch it.

Finally Kaito spoke up, "How much did you hear?"

"Everything between you coming home and my falling out of the tree."

"You heard all of it then?" Kaito asked as he took a casual sip of his tea.

Chikage smiled faintly, "Oh my, I didn't say anything embarrassing did I?"

"Would you mind explaining why the two of you act like a married couple?" Hakuba asked, he didn't expect an honest answer, and honestly he wasn't sure he wanted to know if there was a some kind of dark secret behind all of this or if the two just had a rather disturbing hobby.

"That's all you want to know?" Kaito asked, raising an eyebrow at the detective who was more confused now than even.

Chikage and Kaito looked at each other briefly, Kaito snickered for a little bit while Chikage giggled.

"It's simple, the two of us are married."

Hakuba looked back and forth between the two trying to remember Japans laws regarding marriage but when his memory failed him he spoke bluntly, "That has to be illegal. Is she not you're mother?"

At this Kaito began to laugh as his expression twisted into an amused smirk, finally explaining, "There are some rather extenuating circumstances surrounding our relationship. You see, the two of us got together and were married shortly thereafter. I officially was pronounced dead after some evil people tried to murder me in a staged stage accident eight years ago, but as you can plainly see I am still very much alive."

Hakuba eye'd Kaito with a curious glance, none of what he was saying made any real sense but the magician's expression was serious. Hakuba assumed that it was merely a joke to cover the real story but still payed close attention as he reached forward and finally began to drink the tea that he had been given.

Kaito continued, "The truth is that on the night that I died in the eyes of society I actually became immortal due to some rather odd circumstances, and at that time I also grew younger. The shock of it all caused me to lose most of my memories and those that remained were somehow warped so that I believed myself to be my own son, and that's how I've been living for the past eight years. Actually, it was just yesterday that I discovered my true identity, so I still haven't recovered most of my memories but I'm trying to act like a better husband while I get everything sorted out."

For a moment Hakuba blinked, processing the ridiculous story that he'd just heard. Then in an instant he spit out the tea that he had been drinking and began shouting as though it would help everything make sense, "What the- but that's impossible!"

"I assure you, it's very possible," Kaito responded calmly, smiling just faintly at the expression that Hakuba was making.

"How the bloody hell is that supposed to be possible! If you're going to lie at least make it believable Kuroba!"

Kaito just smiled broadly and began to laugh again, "Right, there's no way anyone would believe such an outrageous lie. I noticed you following me home and decided to play a trick on you is all."

Hakuba's eyes widened, he'd seen Kaito tell lies to pull off pranks on his classmates before but the way he was acting didn't seem to fit that pattern, the way Kaito was acting fit more with the way he tended to act whenever he'd already done his trick. The detective wasn't sure how it was possible but all the evidence was pointing towards impossibility; there was no trick involved, Kaito wasn't lying.

"Holy..." Hakuba trailed off then continued with a stammer, "Y-you were serious?"

"Geez first you think I'm lying, then you think I'm serious... how annoying," Kaito said, rolling his eyes to express that he was annoyed, "You're a detective. Figure it out yourself."

Hakuba opened his mouth as if he was about to point out how unreasonable Kaito was being but he quickly closed it without saying anything. He sighed and took a sip of the tea, accepting that the outrageous story that Kaito had just told was more likely than not the truth.

Kaito suddenly stood up, "There's proof!"

"Proof that what you just told me is the truth?" Hakuba asked, clearly confused by Kaito's shout.

"No, proof that Kuroba Kaito exists!" Kaito replied excitedly, rushing over to a table a picking up a picture frame.

Hakuba blinked.

"Unless this is Photoshopped then this is proof that both Kuroba Kaito and Kuroba Toichi have been in the same place at the same time... so he must exist."

"Of course he does Dear," Chikage said cocking her head just slightly, "I thought you already knew."

"How would I know that?" Kaito said, his tone seemed to be on the fine line between annoyed and anxious, "I mean, ever since I've found out my real identity I've been wondering if I'd completely made up an identity, or if I'd taken the place of a real person and it that was the case what happened to the original that I was taking the place of..."

"Well you were going to stay at his house the other night so I though maybe..."

Kaito's eyes widened, "You don't mean... Shinichi is..."

Chikage nodded.

"'Shinichi'?" Hakuba spoke up, his tone made it clear that he was in denial now more than ever, "Are you referring to 'Kudo Shinichi' -the high school detective?"

By this point Hakuba wasn't so much denying that it was possible, more that such a brilliant detective could have been born as a result of such a mischievous father.

Chikage sighed and explained, "When Toichi came home looking and acting like Kai-chan I knew that something must have happened, I became worried when I saw that Toichi had apparently died in a stage accident... so to hide the fact that Toichi was still alive I asked Yukiko and Yusaku to take care of Kai-chan, they wound up creating a whole new identity for him as their own son..."

"So 'Kudo Shinichi' is an assumed name?" the detective asked, now taking the weirdness in stride. No one felt the need to answer his question as it was quite obvious.

Kaito smirked, "Then I suppose I'll have to have a nice long father/son talk with him at some point."

...

That night Kaitou Kid had sent out a heist notice claiming that he would be taking a rather large gem from a museum in Beika the next night. Naturally Conan found this to be greatly concerning because he knew that Kid now had the thing he was looking for and no longer had any reason to go around stealing, so Conan made sure to make it to that night's heist.

Of course things ended as they usually do, Kid and Conan stood on the roof alone as Kid had managed to sufficiently distract the task force.

Conan raised an eyebrow at the thief as he held the gem up in the moonlight, Kid noticed his confused gaze and broke the silence, "sorry, force of habit."

Conan sighed as though disappointed that he'd been expecting the thief to say something serious, "Why are you stealing again? Weren't you supposed to stop after you found Pandora?"

"I'm actually not here to steal tonight," The thief grinned as he looked down at his watch, "It shouldn't be much longer now."

Only a moment later, as if on cue, Nakamori-keibu managed to make it to the roof. He practically broke down the door as he burst onto the roof.

"I've finally caught you, Kid!" Nakamori-keibu shouted, "You're under arrest!"

"Perfect timing, Nakamori-keibu," Kid said, not appearing the least bit intimidated by the officer's presence, "Here, catch. I wasn't really after the useless rock to begin with."

Sure enough, the object that Kid tossed the officer was none other than the gem that the thief had supposedly come to steal that night. Nakamori-keibu was a bit surprised, while it was true that Kid always returned the things he stole, it was usually after he got away with the target that he returned it. The officer had never known Kid to show such clear disinterest in a target besides perhaps the times when Suzuki Jirokichi would challenge the thief.

The thief let out a proud laugh, grabbing the child detective in front of him as his cape turned into his signature hang glider in preparation for his escape. He left only a few parting words to the officer as he jumped from the roof with child in tow.

"I'll be borrowing my son for a little bit."


	5. One happy family

**This chapter wound up long for some reason... well I guess that's a good thing for you since you get more story. It just means I haven't just been wasting my time the entire time since uploading last chapter, just most of it.  
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**In any case, as usual please review because I really appreciate reviews (speaking of which thanks for reviewing on the last chapter to those of you who did) I hope you enjoy this chapter too.  
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Everyone was surprised when Nakamori-keibu reported that Conan had been kidnapped by Kaitou Kid (this report was made between strings of words that should probably never be repeated but were likely heard all over Japan), their surprise increased ten-fold when he mentioned Kid's strange parting words. Of course the natural reaction had been to try calling Conan's parents but when Ran tried no one picked up.

Even though naturally they still couldn't be certain that Kid wasn't just playing an extremely weird joke by claiming to be Conan's father, and as no one could claim to have ever met or talked to Conan's father it was eventually assumed that Kid was indeed actually Mr. Edogawa. Though why Kid would decide to reveal his identity so flamboyantly was beyond the task forces understanding, sure Kid did everything flamboyantly, but revealing his identity in any way was a relatively stupid action for the genius thief.

Only the few people that knew that Edogawa Conan was an assumed identity and by extension that he had no father, those few were extremely worried about what the real identity of Conan's kidnapper might be. Agasa-hakase was looking through the file that Yusaku had for Kid but was unable to find any information that seemed like it might be useful.

Eventually it was decided that since Kid only said that he was 'borrowing' Conan for 'a little bit' that the child would likely be returned to the Mouri's shortly so no one put much effort into finding the child or the thief knowing that if the thief didn't want them to be found they probably wouldn't be.

It was around this time that Hakuba received a phone call from Kaito inviting him to dinner, Hakuba would have turned him down if he hadn't been able to hear the complaints of a certain annoyed child mingling with the background noise, but because he had been able to hear the child he accepted and managed to arrive at Kaito's house shortly thereafter.

Hakuba stood at the door for a moment before opening it, wondering exactly how Kaito intended to explain Conan's presence in his house; the magician couldn't just say that Kid had dropped him off because something like that would make no sense, but there was nothing else he could say short of revealing that he was -as Hakuba knew all along- Kaitou Kid. When he finally opened the door and stepped into the house the sight that greeted him came as a shock.

Kaito -who was wearing a white suit, not that that proved anything if he didn't have the cape, hat, or monocle- seemed to be having a face off of sorts with Conan; the two were standing on opposite sides of the living room coffee table, Kaito had his usual card gun in had while Conan seemed prepared to take on anything with what appeared to be a simple wristwatch.

Hakuba blinked, assuming that part of the scene that lay before him was a hallucination, but when blinking repeatedly didn't change the situation at all he simply sat down on the couch. He may not have known exactly what was going on between Kaito and Conan, but he knew for a fact that it would probably be best that he not get involved.

Eventually Hakuba's curiosity got the better of him, forcing him to ask, "Kuroba, why did you kidnap Edogawa-kun?"

"I didn't kidnap him," Kaito replied, taking a moment to look at Hakuba despite their stand off, "He's my son, so it's not kidnapping."

"What do you mean I'm your son? ! Have you lost your mind? !" Conan protested, not even bothering to speak in a childish tone, but he was ignored.

"If I recall correctly your son was supposed to be 'Kudo Shinichi', a teenager," Hakuba pointed out.

Kaito turned back to 'Conan' continuing their stand off, "that's right."

Hakuba returned to his original point, "Then why did you kidnap a seven year old?"

"Why would I do something like that?" Kaito asked, adding an amused laugh at the end.

"That's what I'm asking."

Kaito looked over at Hakuba again, raising an eyebrow, "You honestly think he's a seven year old?"

Hakuba hesitated, taking a cautious glance over at the child in question before responding, "He's not?"

Kaito nodded. A now extremely annoyed Conan shouted at the thief, "What on Earth do you think you're doing, Kid! I don't go around giving away your secrets!"

Hakuba's eyes widened, "but... that's impossible..."

"Really? You're saying that again?" The thief replied, "Tsk, tsk, you should know better. Just look at me, I'm in my forties but without a disguise I can't pass for anything over twenty."

"Is what he's saying true, Edogawa-kun?" Hakuba looked at the supposed child, staring him down with a serious gaze.

Conan knew that even if he did deny the magician would probably just point out that he was lying and the British detective -not knowing what to believe- would probably investigate and find the truth on his own. He sighed, "Yes, it's true."

Hakuba began mumbling 'no way' and many other reality-rejecting phrases as he stared at Conan as the shrunken detective continued to voice his displeasure about how the thief had basically forced him to tell Hakuba his secret.

Saving the boys from their downward spiral into insanity Chikage stepped in and said the magic words, "Dinner's ready."

Within moments the four were sitting at the table; Hakuba picked at his plate to busy thinking about everything he'd just heard to bother with eating, Conan acted calm as he ate but every now and then he'd pause and give Kaito an annoyed glace, Kaito simply ate wife's home cooked meal without saying much, after a while Chikage made an attempt at starting a conversation to lighten the mood.

"I think it's wonderful that Kai-chan looks the same age he was when he left," She said with a strained smile, "It's almost like I've gone back in time."

Conan looked at her for a moment but didn't say anything. He still refused to accept that his life as 'Kudo Shinichi' had all been a lie, he went so far in his denial that he was ignoring all evidence that he was indeed the magician's son.

"Um, if I might ask, how exactly did you turn into a child, Kudo-kun?" Hakuba suddenly spoke up, "I understand that Kuroba was ...de-aged thanks to a peculiar gem, but your case is much more recent so I assume it's a separate matter entirely..."

"I was poisoned," Conan answered vaguely, trying to make it sound as though it wasn't a big deal so Hakuba wouldn't push the subject.

Unfortunately for Conan, Hakuba did push the subject, "Poisoned? Poison doesn't make teenagers turn into children!"

"It was actually a failed attempt at recreating the tears of immortality that Kid is currently alive and young because of," Conan replied, he hoped that if he explained that the subject would be dropped, "From what I've heard nearly every other person that's taken the same poison I did died, I'm lucky to be alive, even if I'm in this form."

"Who created this poison?" Hakuba -now extremely curious- asked, lead by his sense of justice, "What did you do to justify being poisoned?"

"Come to think of it I don't know the story behind it myself..." Kaito piped in, becoming curious himself.

Conan looked down, his bangs covered his face making it impossible for the others to see his face.

"Aw, don't be shy. You can tell us," Chikage mused, sounding just the way you would normally expect a cheerful mother to sound.

Conan gave her a shy smile as if to show his reluctance to say anything relating to the matter, "If I told you that would just make you targets if those people ever find out I'm still alive..."

There was a strange sort of tension in the air as Kaito and Chikage both gave the small boy understanding looks, Hakuba on the other hand could not sympathize and looked at Conan with a very dissatisfied glare as he furrowed his brow.

"It sounds like you've gotten mixed up in something dangerous..." The British detective stated.

"I have."

"I see... Then you can tell us all about it after Hakuba-kun leaves." Chikage responded,

Conan flinched, he didn't want to endanger the woman or her husband/son anymore than they already were from his being Kaitou Kid.

"Listen up. You are my son. I was a phantom thief, I was the wife of a phantom thief, and for the past eight years I've had to be the mother of a phantom thief," Chikage spoke in a stern yet motherly tone as she pointed at Conan decidedly with her chopsticks, " Danger is nothing new for me, you have to tell me what's going on so I can worry about you properly!"

Kaito didn't fail to notice that she'd phrased it that she '_was_' the wife of a phantom thief, past tense implying that she was no longer the wife of a phantom thief. However, he didn't feel the need to point it out to anyone.

Conan hesitated, but from his experience with Yukiko he knew just how stubborn mothers could be and realized that resistance would only be futile, "Alright..."

With the understanding that Conan had just agreed to tell his supposed parents the full story after Hakuba left the British detective spoke up but found himself unsure of exactly what he should call Conan, "Edogawa-ku-... I mean Kudo-kun, I..."

"Call me whatever you like, just don't call me by my real name in public. I don't need another Hattori running around," The smaller detective sighed.

"Hattori knows about this?" Hakuba asked, trailing off before anyone had time to answer, "Of course he does... that explains how he was acting at that time..."

"He actually managed to figure it out after meeting 'Conan' twice..." The not-child said, adding a snicker as he noted that Hakuba had already met Conan twice and hadn't even been suspicious.

Hakuba didn't bother to counter the statement, as it was obviously a crack at his detective skills, and instead continued with what he had been going to say before, "I am a detective. If you think I'm about to turn a blind eye to whatever it is that happened to you and let it keep happening behind my back then you've got another thing coming."

By this point Conan realized that there was no point in trying to keep everything a secrets from any of the three at the table much longer so with an only slightly annoyed sigh he told the truth about what he had been facing for nearly a year.

...

Not long after dinner Conan had fallen asleep on the couch, he hadn't intended to but it had been a long day for him and even if he really was a teenager his body -being that of a child- needed sleep. It had gotten quite late and neither of the houses residents felt the need to wake the young boy.

Kaito smiled softly as he carefully pulled a blanket over the child detective, giving the detective a faint kiss on the forehead.

As moments passed in silence the magician stared tenderly at his supposed son, messing with the boy's bangs as he slept, "It's hard to believe isn't it..."

Conan flinched at the sound then moved around in his sleep, Kaito's smile faded, making sure to stay quiet so he wouldn't wake his child-like rival as he continued to watch him in the darkness. The magician had no doubt that he was having what would probably be considered a nightmare by a normal person's standards, but for the young detective it was probably one of his more pleasant dreams.

"If it weren't hard to believe I would be worried about you," Chikage chimed in suddenly, Kaito hadn't even realized she was behind him until she spoke.

"Fair enough," He replied jokingly, still keeping quite to avoid waking the not-child.

Smiling tenderly at her husband-turned-son, "I wonder... do you think it will always be like this from now on, Toichi?"

Kaito thought for a moment before answering, "I don't know."


	6. Old friends

**Yay, finally finished another chapter! This time the dialogue was completely co-written by Syrus07 and Me, it's much better than it would be if it was just me alone! You're so helpful! So I must thank you a lot!  
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**Really? No reviews on the previous chapter but eight on the one before it? Did I really lose eight reviewers? Where have you gone people? Does no one read these things cause I mean it when I say that getting reviews makes me uber happy! So please review even if you have pretty much nothing to say!  
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**Well with that said I hope you enjoy!  
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Kaito stared at the phone in his hand a moment before he finally dialed, when the person on the other end answered with a completely average sounding 'Hello' he swallowed nervously and said, "Nakamori-keibu... I need to talk to you, could you come to my house..."

He hung up before the Nakamori had a chance to say anything in return, forcing the officer to do as he had asked.

After he arrived at the Kuroba residence moments passed in silence as Kaito and Nakamori sat across from each other, there was coffee on the table in front of them but neither of them even reached for their cups.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" The older looking man asked once he could no longer take the tense silence.

"Nakamori-kei- I mean Ginzo, I'm-" Kaito started but he was interrupted by Nakamori.

"Since when are you calling me by my given name?"

Kaito paused for a moment, thinking carefully before answering, "I don't quite remember but I always called you 'Ginzo' back when we were in high school together..."

Nakamori's eyes narrowed, "What are you talking about, Kaito, you weren't even alive when I was in high school."

"Actually, I'm not Kaito..." The magician replied, "I'm really Toichi."

Nakamori slammed his hands down on the table, "What the (insert string of swear words of your choice here) are you saying!"

After an odd moment passed without Kaito elaborating on what he'd said Nakamori grabbed the table and promptly sent it hurtling at Kaito.

Using the skills he'd gained as Kid, Kaito barely managed to keep the table from colliding with his face but it still hit his leg in passing. Kaito couldn't keep himself from shouting "What'd you do that for!"

Nakamori still seemed angry but didn't look as though he was about to attack again as he replied, "You've lost your mind! You aren't making sense!"

Kaito's jaw dropped, "So you throw a freakin' table at me?"

"I'm trying to knock some sense into you!"

"Who's the one that's not making any sense here?"

"That would be you," The officer responded, looking every bit as frustrated as he ever did after Kid's heists.

"So a grown man throwing a table against a grown man revealing his identity," Kaito replied, sarcasm weighing heavy in his tone as he motioned as if he was weighing the situation with his hands.

Kaito saw what appeared to be a faint sliver of a smile creep onto Nakamori's face as he looked at a chair that matched the now broken table and began to reach for it.

"Hey! I'm telling the truth here Nakamori-keibu!" The thief exclaimed as he just barely dodged the chair that the officer had thrown despite his attempts at a casual conversation, "Please stop with the furniture! I don't know if we can afford to get new furniture!"

"I'm the adult here and I can throw as much furniture as I want!" Nakamori childishly replied.

"I'm an adult too!" The magician insisted.

"No. You're not," The officer denied.

"You know if you keep breaking my furniture I'll have to go back to being Kid just so I can replace all of this..." Kaito sighed as he looked at the wreckage where the table had created a sizable indention in the kitchen wall and the chair had collided with the cabnet where Chikage kept their good dishes.

"What?"

"Didn't I mention that?" Kaito turned to look back at his old friend with an innocent expression.

Nakamori couldn't take it and began to babble incomprehensibly, "You...you're...what? ! ?"

"The one and only Kaitou Kid."

"How... you're only sixteen!" The officer shouted, opting for common sense rather than trying to get the thief to explain himself, "Kid has been around for eighteen years!"

"Try forty."

Nakamori took a moment to process what had been said before his jaw dropped, "Bu-bu-but you- you're-"

"Toichi," the man in question said with an amused smirk, "It isn't that hard to pronounce."

"I was going to say 'a kid'!" The officer replied, his anger and disbelief mingled only serving to entertain the not-teen even further.

"Look, Ginzo, we've been over this... I'm not a kid," Kaito figured it would be best to take it slow so that the older seeming man wouldn't just send him to an insane asylum, "I may be Kid but I'm forty and actually _have_ a kid so..."

"But... that's impossible..." The officer exclaimed, looking to be on the edge of sanity himself.

"You would not believe how many times I've heard that these past few days..." Kaito muttered, mostly to himself.

Suddenly the front door opened to reveal Aoko with tears in her eyes as she had apparently overheard everything, after a few second she managed to speak, "Kaito...is this true?"

With a sigh Kaito admitted, "Yes."

"No!" Nakamori objected.

"You look like Kaito so you're Kaito!" Aoko shouted, denying everything that Kaito had said.

Kaito was beginning to get annoyed and it was showing through his usual poker face as he brought his hand to his forehead before sliding it slowly down his face, "The 'Kaito' you're talking about, is my son. Family friends took him in after I legally died, they gave him a new life and a new name."

"What's the name?"

"Kudo Shinichi. But that's beside the fact, I'm Toichi, got it Kuroba Toichi."

"Kudo Shinichi?" Aoko exclaimed, "Isn't he a famous High School Detective?"

"Yeah... but that doesn't really matter right now..." Kaito trailed off.

"Wait a minute!" Nakamori shouted, earning everyone's attention, "Didn't you kidnap Edogawa Conan earlier claiming he was your son? !"

"Well... um... there are some odd circumstances, but for various reasons Conan is ... um..." Kaito paused, trying to think of an appropriate lie so he wouldn't drag the Aoko or her father to deep into everything, once he'd thought of such a lie he continued, "Acting as 'Shinichi's eyes and ears right now."

"Kaito-" Nakamori started but he stopped when he saw that Kaito was glaring at him, "Fine! Toichi then. You can't just kidnap seven year olds so you can talk to your son!"

"Really... are you saying that i can't talk to my son?" Kaito asked, looking more serious than Aoko thought him capable.

"Bakaito! He's saying not to kidnap little children!"

"But Conan is..." Kaito face palmed, "It's really complicated... just don't worry about it okay?"

Aoko's eyes narrowed, she spoke in a dry tone, "Hearing that from you makes me worry even more..."

"Look, he's fine," Kaito said, gesturing to the couch where Conan was still sleeping only five feet from them.

Aoko rushed over to check on the child but when nothing appeared to be wrong she refused to admit it and insisted that Kaito had traumatized the poor defenseless child, "Yeah right... you probably scared the kid half to death."

"No we argued a bit, but Hakuba was there so nothing to big happened," Kaito admitted, playing down the life shattering revelations.

"If you told him what happened it would!"

"I did tell him... both of them actually."

"Why the (insert swear words here) would you do that?" Nakamori looked as if he was about to smack Kaito but he managed to stop himself.

"Why shouldn't I?" Kaito asked innocently.

"Because something like that would $%^&*%$$# those kids minds!" Nakamori protested.

"Tousan, Hakuba's older than Aoko and Aoko isn't a kid," Aoko said, childishly using cutesy first-person speech.

"Well, when you get to be this age teenagers are children," Kaito joked, "Isn't that right Ginzo?"

Nakamori still refused to accept that it was even possible for Kaito to actually be Toichi, "Just shut up."

Kaito frowned just slightly, "You were agreeing with me a few seconds ago."

The arguing that ensued was soon interrupted by the groggy sounds of Conan waking up.

"...Kid?"

"Oh, you're awake!" Kaito clapped, happy that he finally had someone to tell them that he hadn't traumatized the supposed child.

"What time is it?" Conan asked, still half asleep.

"Don't worry, I called your school and told them you were sick."

Conan looked at the thief with a blank stare as what had just been said slowly registered in his mind, "How did you- never mind."

"Conan, has Bakaito done anything to you?" Aoko asked ignoring the already ongoing conversation.

"Nothing harmful, but he has annoyed me a lot..." Conan answered, now fully awake and able to recognize that even though she looked almost the same as Ran she wasn't. He mused to himself that perhaps all Ekoda residents were failed clones of Beika residents.

"Awww... I happened to enjoy our battle at the coffee table..." Kaito said acting disheartened.

Paying no attention at all to Kaito Conan simply looked at his watch as he'd realized he never received an answer to his original question.

"You did _what_ on the coffee table?" Nakamori had no choice but to ask.

However Kaito's response left much to be desired, "We had a dramatic stand-off."

Nakamori finally gave up and sighed, turning to Conan, "Do I even _want_ to know?"

"Probably not."

"C'mon, don't normal families do stuff like that?" Kaito asked as if it was the most normal thing in the world to face off with family members around a coffee table.

"Well... no, actually," Aoko said giving a concerned glace at Kaito then at the supposed child, "Normal families definitely don't do that."

Kaito gave an exaggerated gasp, "I hope I'm not being a bad role model!"

"Kid, you're a thief... and legally dead," Conan pointed out bluntly.

"The kid makes a good point," Nakamori agreed.

"Well, that's hardly my fault now is it?"

Conan responded with what they all were thinking, "It's completely your fault."

The magician pouted.

"Well, I guess you couldn't really avoid being legally dead," Conan corrected himself.

The thief smiled, "I knew you would understand, Kai-chan."

The child in question grumbled, already realizing the thief's mistake.

"Um...Kaito," Aoko asked with an 'I'm on to you' kind of expression, "Why did you just call Edogawa-kun 'Kai-chan'?

Kaito spazzed, flailing his limbs as though it would make his lie more believable, "Well I told you he's Shini- er Kaito's eyes and ears, Conan speaks for him too sometimes, so it's easy to forget that he isn't the actual person... isn't that right, Conan?

Conan's face became deadpan for a moment as if to say 'really, you're using that excuse?' before he put up his usual childish facade and responded, "That's right, Kid-niichan!"

Aoko and her father were not really satisfied with the two similar looking boys answer, but they both understood that there would be nothing to gain from questioning either of them so they hesitantly let the conversation drop.

The adult-turned-teen glared at the not-child, "You know... it's _really_ annoying when you talk all squeaky like that."

"Well, I _am_ a kid," Conan replied, the sarcasm in his tone making it somewhat clear that it wasn't true.

"And I'm sixteen," Kaito rolled his eyes, "I think we both know that's not true, son."

Conan sighed, "How are you my dad?"

"I know, we don't have anything in common!" Kaito responded.

"That's not what I meant and you know it..." Conan answered with a glare.

"Would you two please stop the whispering?" Aoko asked though it wasn't actually meant as a question.

Nakamori added with a sigh,"Yes, and I would like to know how my friend managed to become a teenager."

"Would you believe 'magic'?" Kaito replied with a hopeful smile. He didn't expect them to believe it, but he didn't feel like explaining everything.

"No. I wouldn't."

"I actually don't remember much of what happened before eight years ago..." Kaito explained, but he realized that Nakamori had grabbed his handcuffs, Aoko was reaching for the nearest mop, and Conan was already twisting the knob on his sneakers he raised his hands in surrender and told them everything.


	7. Violence

**Yay, finally got another chapter done, sorry it took so long, I have no excuse -not that you would believe them anyway if I did have one.**

**This chapter was written together with Syrus07 like the last one was, we'll probably be mostly doing it like that from now on so I hope you don't mind the fact that it turns out super dialogue driven when we do it this way.  
**

**I hope you enjoy, and please review, because if you do it'll take me less time to write the chapters (probably).  
**

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"So when you 'died' eight years ago you actually drank some weird tears from a rock and became immortal and it also made you younger and messed with your memories?" Aoko summarized after Kaito explained everything, she was giving Kaito her best 'you expect me to actually believe that' look.

"Yup, that sounds about right," Kaito confirmed with his signature smile.

Aoko sighed, "It sounds ridiculous."

Kaito smiled, "But it's true, I really am an old man~"

"Your forty how can you call yourself an old man?" Nakamori replied with a sigh.

"'Cause I'm still used to thinking like a teenager. I feel about eighteen so forty seems pretty old~" Kaito said, and it was true, he really couldn't bring himself to think of himself as being a forty year old despite knowing he was.

The officer muttered mostly to himself, "My childhood friend is a child..."

"Yes, I am," Kaito declared proudly, "And there really isn't anything you can do to change that."

"Well there always is the antidote," Conan muttered, quietly enough that only Kaito would have heard him.

"That antidote would fix_ your_ problem, Who knows if it can fix _mine_ or not," The magician whispered back. It's not like he really wanted to be an adult again anyway, at least not at the moment. Who would choose being an adult and growing old over practical eternal youth?

Scowling the not-child replied, still whispering, "My 'problem' is based on your 'problem'."

Kaito wasn't really sure what to say to that. 'Sorry' maybe, after all if he had retained his memories after becoming 'Kaito' then he would have at least been able to keep Pandora out of the hands of that evil organization, then they wouldn't have ever been able to make that stupid poison and 'Shinichi' wouldn't have gotten involved. Not wanting to really think about what would have happened Kaito just remained silent.

Conan realized that Kaito was taking a while to answer so he shrugged, "Well it's worth a shot."

"It's not like it can kill me," Kaito whispered sarcastically.

"Well duh it can't kill you, you're technically immortal," Conan whispered, rolling his eyes.

"Enough with the whispering," Nakamori said suddenly, "Since when have you two been so clique-y. Wasn't Edogawa-kun known as 'the Kid killer'?"

"I have my reasons...," Conan said as if that would be answer enough, before the older man had the chance to ask what reasons he might have Conan added, "and aren't you the guy that's normally obsessed with landing Kid in jail?"

"Um... well... that is..."

Kaito reached up and put his arm around the older looking man's shoulder, his usual grin creeping onto his face, "You just don't want to send your best bud to jail, right?"

"Try acting your age for once," Nakamori replied as he removed Kaito's arm from his shoulder as though it were a thorny plant.

"Do I have to?" Kaito whined, giving the officer his best 'I'm totally innocent' expression.

"The world would be better off if you did."

Kaito raised an eyebrow, "So even though I'm -technically- still in High school, you want me to go back to having a respectable job -though I'm keeping my side job- and acting like a husband to my wife?"

Nakamori opened his mouth to agree immediately, but then he stopped and thought about it for a moment. Finally realizing just how strange it would be to see a teenager acting like a forty year old married man.

"Maybe it's better that you're acting childish..."

Knowing that he had once again beaten the officer Kaito grinned, "Thank you~"

"Can you at least act a little more..." Nakamori started but decided to change his wording, "_Less_ annoying?"

"You didn't find it annoying in high school when you helped me prank," Kaito replied without missing a beat.

The officer flinched. Aoko didn't even try to hide the shock on her face as she reached for a mop that was conveniently sitting nearby; naturally she wasn't very happy with the idea that her father would have helped Kai- Toichi prank back when they were in school, especially not if their pranks were anything like the pranks Kaito usually did.

"It isn't what it sounds like, I swear!" Nakamori said, knowing all to well what his daughter was capable of doing with a mop.

"Tou-san..." Aoko started, raising the mop into the perfect swinging stance.

"Yeah... I remember that you always helped me pull pranks in Highschool all the time, you were practically my assistant back then..." Kaito continued, happy that he wasn't going to be the one on the receiving end of the mop"Peeking in the girls locker room, gluing students to their desks, dying the teacher's hair like a rainbow..."

"Why does he have to remember _that?"_ He muttered to himself before attempting to reply nonchalantly, "You must be mistaken..."

"No I remember _very_ clearly," The magician assured, smiling as a wave of nostalgia hit him.

"I-i thought you couldn't trust your memory," Nakamori stuttered in his surprise.

"No way I could forget that!" Kaito laughed, "I remembered the second I pranked Hakuba again."

For a moment Nakamori looked annoyed by the prospect of Kaito remember troublesome things, but curiosity won out on his face. He raised an eyebrow, "What did you do?"

"Dyed his hair periwinkle, eyebrows and all," Kaito answered proudly.

"We did that to-" Nakamori snickered, cutting off as Aoko whacked him with her trusty mop. Fearing another whack he attempted to calm her down, "That was back when I was your age..."

"Still!"

"Actually I wonder how Hakuba managed to get his hair back to normal..." Kaito murmured, "It was supposed to last a week..."

"Maybe the color was just to light? Try a darker one next time," with a shrug the older looking man made the suggestion reflexively.

"Stop encouraging him!" Aoko shouted, whacking her father a few more times to get her point across.

"Too late he's already on the dark side," The thief mused. Just the thought of the police officer being 'on the dark side' made a grin stretch across his face.

Upon getting hit by his daughter again Nakamori couldn't help but shout at his old friend, "Stop, she's just hitting me more!"

"She's been hitting me for about six years now," Katio replied without much sympathy, he held his hands up as if to add 'you kinda deserve it'.

Aoko glared, turning to hit Kaito instead as she realized that he was the one that had dragged her father into his mischief in the past and he apparently hadn't had any mop-weilding friends to keep him on the right track back then.

Not long after Aoko had started hitting Kaito they heard a rather loud 'ahem' come from the general vicinity of the floor, upon looking down they saw Conan standing at their feet with all the innocence of a child.

"Oh, right I need to take you home..."

"Yeah, because Ran will... I mean Ran-neechan will kill you if I stay kidnapped much longer," Conan pointed out.

Kaito gulped. If he thought Aoko with a mop was bad then Ran would be a hundred times worse because unlike Aoko she was trained, it definitely didn't seem like a good idea to be pissing off the Kanto Karate Champion.

"Well you did kidnap him, so you deserve whatever punishment his guardians give you," Nakamori shrugged.

"Does he look kidnapped?" Kaito asked, "I mean it's not like I'm asking for ransom or anything. I didn't even tie him up..."

"I guess..."

"Actually it was kind of fun," Conan stated, he instantly wished he hadn't when he saw the satisfied look on Kaito's face. He added, "I mean... Kaito-niichan pretty much made a fool of himself."

Aoko and Nakamori both laughed, the thought of Kaito making a fool of himself was just to much to not laugh at.

The magician pouted, "I did not make a fool of myself!"

Silence.

Kaito sighed and scooped Conan up like a football. As he reached the door he turned, "Well, I've gotta get Conan home, Chikage will be here soon you can wait for her if you want."

"Nah, we should be getting back home anyway..." Nakamori trailed off.

"Suit yourself."

...

"Whats your story?" Conan asked, he didn't need to explain, Kaito knew that he was going to need some kind of background story if he didn't want to tell the complete truth.

"I'm your brother and Edogawa's a fake last name," Kaito responded, "Also Kid is our father, our mother had you go live with the Mouri's to save you from a life of crime."

"Well at least part of it is true..." Conan sighed.

"That's the point," Kaito pointed out confidently, "If she does a search on the name 'Edogawa' the only real results would be stuff that's happened since you became Conan or stuff relating to Edogawa Ranpo, it'll be believable and she won't be able to discover my real identity."

"She's still going to beat you up, I hope you know that," Conan replied dryly without an ounce of sympathy in his tone, in fact he seemed to be looking forward to it.

Kaito gasped in a very loud and over exaggerated fashion, "But it was Otou-san that kidnapped you, not me, I'm the innocent big brother that's bringing you back!"

The small teen's eyes narrowed, "So that's why you're doing it this way..."

"What? Would you rather me go in there as 'Kudo Shinichi'?" Kaito asked with a smirk.

Conan thought about it for a moment. He had been (very) publicly kidnapped by Kaitou Kid, who had claimed to be Conan's father upon kidnapping him, if 'Kudo Shinichi' brought Conan back then Ran might believe that Shinichi himself was Kid -and by extension Conan's father. Regardless of how impossible it all was Conan shivered at the thought.

"No..." Conan said with a gulp, "This is fine."

"Then lets go," The magician stated, once again picking Conan up football style (much to the small detective's protests) as he walked up the stairs of the detective agency that the Mouri's lived in. With just a few seconds of hesitation the thief knocked on the door.

"Coming!" Ran shouted through the door, answering moments latter. Her confusion showed clearly on her face, "Eh? Conan-kun and... Shinichi?"

"I'm not Kudo Shinichi..." Kaito said with a sigh.

"Then you're kid!" She shouted, kicking him with nearly all the strength she could muster in an instant before he had the chance to confirm or deny her acusation, even with his above average reflexes he didn't have the time to dodge and instead took the full force of the attack.

"No... I'm not..." The thief lied, wheezing as he tried -in vain- to catch his breath.

"This is kaito-niichan, he's my... well, Niichan," Conan explained, trying very hard to hide his smile. He knew that it would be hard for Kaito to say much himself after having just been on the reviving end of Ran's karate.

"Oh My God! I'm so sorry!" Ran apologized helping the now ungraceful Kaito get off the ground.

"It's alright," Kaito replied as he seemed to have finally recovered enough to put his poker face back on, "I've been banged around a lot by my friend... she's a mop wielding demon."

The karate champion gave an apologetic smile, "Sorry again... I just thought that since you look so much like Shinichi you must be Kid... since it was Kid that Kidnapped Conan-kun and all..."

"Anyway, Kaito-niichan isn't Kid," Conan stated, glaring daggers at Kaito as if to say 'I'm not lying for you, I'm lying so we won't have to explain that it's possible for someone to look that much younger than their actual age'.

"Yeah, but I'm sorry about Tou-san, he's a nice guy," Kaito added, not even flinching when Conan casual delivered a super-charged kick to his shin, "but he's still a criminal."

"Well it was great seeing you but..." Conan said as he began to close the door, but ran stopped him.

"'Kaito', is it?"

He nodded, "Yes, Edogawa Kaito."

"Come in, it would be great to learn about Conan's family," She said, happily smiling as she completely ignored the fact that Conan couldn't wait for his so-called older brother to leave.

"Kuso..." The teen-turned-child grumbled under his breath, to quiet for Ran to hear and scold him for cursing.

Kaito smiled as he followed Ran through the door, "I'd love to, it'll be nice to see the environment that Conan's been living in all this time."

Ran led the way inside and up the stairs into the main living area of their house. "Tou-san, Conan-kun's back!" She shouted to her father before turning to Kaito, "I'll go make some tea, you can make yourself at home."

As soon as Ran was out of earshot Conan whispered to Kaito, making clear the obvious fact that he was annoyed by the thief's mere presence, "Why are you still here?"

"'Cause it annoys you~" Kaito whispered back with an amused tone.

"Nakamori-keibu is right..." Conan muttered, "You really should try to act a bit more mature. You're more like an annoying brother than father."

Kaito sighed, it's not like he wasn't trying to act a little more like his original self, but it really didn't help that almost everything he could remember was from his first time going through high school. Did anyone really expect him to go from being a class clown type to a mature, responsible adult in a matter of days?

"Can't you let me regain a few more memories before acting like Toichi?"

Of course as luck would have it Ran managed to walk in just as Kaito had asked that so she just so happened to overhear that portion of their conversation. Though whether it was Ran's luck, or Kaito's luck is anyone's guess.

The confusion on Ran's face was clear once again as she managed to make sense of Kaito's question, "Eh? You've lost your memories? And... who's Toichi?"

Kaito gave a somewhat panicked look in Conan's direction, they both knew that this would be difficult to explain without telling some portion of the truth... but telling her the full truth would definitely complicate things, and he tried to convey as much with his gaze.

"Er... It's kind of a long story but..." He said, hesitating just a moment before he continued, "I lost my memories a few years ago and actually managed to create an entire false identity for myself as Kaito, I recently learned that my real name is Toichi and have started to get my memories back..."

"Oh, I've had amnesia before myself," Ran tried to sympathize, "If it wasn't for Conan-kun I... I don't know that I would have ever gotten my memories back."

"He helped you then? That sounds like something he would do," Kaito said with a smile, giving a little laugh as he continued, "He's always been such a cute child... at least I think he has... I don't really remember."

"You can come back anytime you want to see Conan-kun, maybe it'll help with your memories," Ran suggested.

"Thank you," Kaito said giving a nod to say that he might come by some time, "Now I really should go... I don't think Conan wants me to stay..."

Even if it was true Conan could help but feel guilty hearing that, sure he didn't want the thief there but that was simply because he made a habit of annoying Conan nearly any time an opportunity to do so arose. It surprised him that Kaito would actually be leaving because Conan didn't want him around... perhaps it was a sign of maturity. The half-pint Holmes didn't make any effort to confirm or deny the thief's statement.

Kaito gave an apologetic bow as he went to leave, smiling at an angle that only Conan would see, "Oh, and I'll try and convince Tou-san not to kidnap Conan next time he want's to see him -though he might do it anyway- I apologize if he worried you."

"Bye Kaito-niichan," Conan said, trying to keep up the appearance of being a somewhat normal child as Ran was in the area. The excitement wasn't completely faked, he was glad to see the magician go, even if he still felt guilty.

"See you again some time, Toichi-kun."


	8. Phantom Lady and The Tramp

**I can't believe this one actually turned out longer than the previous one (granted not by much but still)... well I suppose that's a good thing. In any case I don't usually write romance so you'll just have to bear with me on this. I don't really have anything else to say so without further ado:  
**

**The dialogue was co-written -as usual- with Syrus07. Hope you enjoy, please review because I'll write faster if you do -no kidding I really will.  
**

* * *

The only fixable food in the fridge had been a large tuna (Kaito had no idea why it was there but naturally refused to eat it) so he and Chikage had no choice but to go out to eat at a restaurant.

It wasn't a fancy restaurant, and they had both discussed beforehand that this defonately wasn't a date; but Kaito was still nervous for no apparent reason at all.

It wasn't helping Kaito that Chikage was continually acting like there was nothing odd or questionable about their relationship status at all. Rather she'd taken to occasionally teasing him about the memories that she had but he didn't as though it were a game so it was no surprise that as soon as they'd been seated in the restaurant she immediately tried to jog his memory.

"You and I came here on a date once before, you know."

Kaito couldn't help but blush at the mention of the word 'date', stuttering a bit in reply, "This really isn't a date or anything... we- we're just..."

"'We're just here as family,'" Chikage finished for him.

Right. They were a family... in a twisted sort of way. They'd been husband and wife, but for as long as one of them could remember they'd been mother and son... now after all this time which were they? Kaito wasn't sure of the answer but it was clear that Chikage knew what she wanted it to be.

After a pause Chikage continued with a smile that appeared genuine, "I know that but... A girl can dream, can't she?"

"I guess," Kaito said, smiling back at her.

"Who knows it might bring back a few of your memories," She stated optimistically.

Not really sure what to say to that, and not wanting to sound doubtful Kaito went with a nonchalant, "Maybe."

"Well even if you don't we can at least make some new memories," She added, looking at him for a moment as if nothing in the world would make her happier than spending time with him -which was probably true.

The blush that was still on his face deepened, turning the normally poker faced magician a salmony pink color -which he was thankfully unaware of, otherwise he may have caused a scene and ruined the moment completely.

Chikage gave a chuckle, "Calm down, It's just dinner."

"I- I said that," He stuttered in response.

"Still, you're the one that's blushing like it's going out of style," Chikage smiled, even knowing that under normal circumstances she wouldn't have been able to tease Toichi for things like blushing. It was sad to think about how different he was from the Toichi she'd known, so she ignored that nagging sad feeling and focused instead on the fact that she was seeing a side of him he likely would have never shown her otherwise.

"That's because you keep saying those romantic lines..." Kaito replied, trailing off as his blush became even pinker, almost neon.

"You think I'm romantic?" She asked, sounding surprised but pleased at the accusation, "I'm flattered."

"That's not what I- ..." He started, pausing when he realized that by denying it he implied the opposite. He sighed, "I do."

Chikage giggled, "I don't remember being the romantic one."

"It's not like I could help it..." Kaito murmured, "Being around you."

Chikage visibly perked up at the statement, happy at the implications even if there was little she could do with her feelings for him.

"I mean... you're really pretty and I..." He started, trailing off. After a pause he continued, "I- I don't know what I'm trying to say, just... forget I said anything."

"Awww, but if I 'forget' you'll be the one left to remember," She said with a teasing smile, "I can't exactly trust you to do that, now can I, sweetie?"

The blush on his face darkened, now turning to a redder shade of pink.

"Why do you seem so flustered I've always called you that, even as Kaito."

"But now it has a meaning..." He started, almost whining.

She interrupted, "It's always had meaning, you just didn't know."

"Yeah, but now I know."

"Do you want me to stop?" She asked, seeming serious for the first time since they'd arrived in the restaurant.

"No!" He said abruptly, a little bit louder than he meant to, after calming himself down a bit he added, "...no, I'm alright with it."

Taking his hands from across the table with a tender smile she replied, "Good."

Soon the waiter came to take their orders, he thankfully didn't ask any questions about why a high school boy seemed to be holding hands across the table with a woman old enough to be his mother, he left as soon as he'd written down what they said they wanted.

Chikage giggled to herself, forcing Kaito to raise an eyebrow at her. She explained, "You ordered that last time we were here too."

"Really?" He asked, surprised that she found something so trivial to be amusing.

"Yep," She affirmed, adding with a near invisible smirk, "You said it didn't taste very good."

"Eh? Then why didn't you warn me?" He frowned at the realization that he probably wouldn't like what he'd ordered.

"I wasn't thinking about it until you ordered it."

"Yeah right," Kaito pouted, only half joking, "You're probably just trying to get me to remember it."

"Maybe," She replied, "Or maybe not~"

"So you are then?"

Chikage ignored the question with a shrug, "Maybe they've gotten better at making it since then, we were here years ago after all."

"Yeah... but now I'm expecting it to taste bad..." He complained, "The menu made it sound really good..."

"Should I not have told you?" She asked.

"It's fine," Kaito sighed, "This way I get to be surprised if it tastes good."

"Look at you, being so optimistic."

Kaito groaned, "It's not optimism, if I don't expect it to be good."

Chikage smiled, "If it's not good you can have some of my spaghetti."

"But then you won't have much to eat..." Kaito complained, frowning just a little bit.

"These kinds of places always give huge portions, I'd probably be taking home leftovers anyway," Chikage rationalized with a casual shrug.

"Alright if you insist," The magician replied, seeming a bit skeptical.

It wasn't much longer before the food had come. Kaito looked down at his meal, it looked delicious, but still he hesitated holding his fork about an inch away until he finally took a bite closing his eyes as he tried it. He spat it out after about three seconds.

"Blegh, this stuff is horrible, I'm surprised I couldn't remember it," Kaito stated blandly as he took a drink of water to get the taste out of his mouth. Then he looked over at Chikage's spaghetti, and hesitated, "I guess I've got no choice but to 'steal' some spaghetti."

"Go ahead," She replied, casually scooting the plate of pasta closer to him so they would both be able to easily reach it.

"This is a lot better than that garbage," Kaito said between mouthfuls of spaghetti, laughing the smallest bit as he added, "Remind me why I didn't order this?"

"Because you were silly enough to forget the first time," Chikage chided. Kaito didn't notice as the slightest hint of a smirk slipped into her expression as she twirled her fork in the spaghetti.

Then slowly the noodles they were each eating grew shorter. Kaito didn't notice what was happening, Chikage didn't care -rather she'd wanted it to happen, and the two drew nearer to each other until finally they touched.

In that moment when their lips met it was as if the world around them just stopped. There was an odd sense of deja vu, as if all of this had happened somewhere, sometime before, but at the same time it felt new, like something never experienced before. It was just magical.

That is until Kaito pulled away, the blush on his face a dark scarlet as he stammered an unnecessary apology, "S-s-sorry."

"I didn't mind..." Chikage replied as faint shades of pink blush danced across her face.

"I uh..." Kaito began, before randomly trailing off for no apparent reason, "Eh?"

Chikage cocked her head, "Is something wrong dear?"

"...just ...just give me a minute okay..." He said, getting up from the table and heading to the bathroom with a slightly panicked look.

Once he had safely locked himself alone in the men's room he began pacing back and fourth muttering to himself, but he soon saw that it was doing nothing to help the situation so he pulled out his cellphone and dialed.

"Hey, Hakuba..." He said sounding a bit winded, "Have you got a moment?"

"Kuroba? What's wrong?" Hakuba asked, no doubt surprised -if not worried- to hear the magician sounding so worn out on the other line.

"Chikage just kissed me!?" He said, his tone was a bit shakey with an odd hint of panic, not at all like the Kaito that Hakuba had become accustom to.

Hakuba scowled, not sure why Kaito would be calling him over a kiss if not to rub it in his face. Still, Kaito's tone had him concerned, "And you feel the need to tell me this?"

"I'm just a bit confused..." Kaito confessed.

Rolling his eyes the slightest bit -not that Kaito could see him doing it over the phone- the British detective responded in a tone as if he were giving a deduction, "The two of you are married, she obviously likes you. It should make sense that she would kiss you."

"My head... it feels like it's going to explode..."

After a short pause Hakuba replied, "Well, that's good."

"Good? How is it good?!" Kaito asked, raising his voice a bit more than he meant to, "What if my head actually does explode? There'll be little bits of Kai- Toichi all over the walls and..."

"It probably means your memories are coming back," the British detective interrupted.

"So I've noticed..." Kaito muttered crossly. Of course he'd noticed all the new-old memories flooding into his head, it didn't take a genius to understand that was what was causing the headache.

Ever curious, as all detectives are, Hakuba ignored Kaito's clearly annoyed tone and asked, "So what do you remember?"

Kaito paused for a moment to think about it. Exactly what had he remembered? It'd only registered to him that he was remembering, he hadn't taken a chance to think about the contents of his newly resurfaced memories... now would be as good a time as any to see how much of his old life he'd managed to salvage with that kiss.

The day he and Chikage had met, dates they'd went on, countless hours they'd spent together, kisses -lots of kisses, the day he proposed, their wedding, Kaito being born... and so much more.

"Well..." He trailed off as blush turned his face a bright scarlet -not that anyone could see it- as he answered, "... stuff."

"What kind of 'stuff'?" Naturally Hakuba was not satisfied with his answer.

Kaito sighed still blushing, "Mostly Chikage, like kisses and dates, our wedding, how we met, and... other stuff."

"That's pretty important 'stuff'," Hakuba pointed out, not bothering to imagine what the 'other stuff' could be.

"Yeah, but it completely changes the way I think about her," Kaito complained as he mentally cursed his life for being so ridiculous.

"Well of course it does," The British detective replied calmly, "but this is the way you thought of her eight years ago."

"I guess..." Kaito said, trailing off as if there was more he wanted to say.

"Is there something wrong?"

"It's just she's been my Mom for eight years and now suddenly I'm thinking about her as a woman -not to mention my wife," Kaito responded, panic sneaking into his tone as he continued, "And it all just feels so strange. I'm in love with the person I thought was my mother! Do you know how crazy that sounds? And I have feelings for Aoko too! She's one of my best friend's daughter! What am I going to do?"

"You're asking me?" Hakuba asked, taken aback that the thief had decided to consult with him about relationship troubles of all things.

Kaito rolled his eyes momentarily ignoring his troubles for the sake of sarcasm, "Believe me if I had any better alternative besides my own son I wouldn't be asking you."

"I see your point," Hakuba said after he finally processed that Kaito was saying Conan/Shinichi had more romantic experience than he did and just how odd it would be for Kaito to go to his own son for advice, "That would be an awkward conversation."

"You're telling me. We already went though it once, but that was before I found out he was my son," The thief replied, the awkwardness showing through in his tone.

"Well, I really don't have any good advice that I can give without sounding like a cheesy romantic movie," The British detective informed, much to Kaito's disappointment.

"Anything is better than nothing."

"Alright," Hakuba said, sighing as if to say 'I warned you' before he continued, "Then follow your bloody heart. It probably knows your feelings better that you."

"Deep Hakuba," Kaito replied, rolling his eyes, "Really deep."

"You're the one who needed advice," Hakuba retorted.

Kaito sighed, knowing that there was really nothing he could say about that, after all he had been the one asking Hakuba for advice. "Yeah... but I expected someone that brags as much as you do to have better advice..."

"I may brag about certain things but my love life definitely isn't one of them," He said innocently.

"Why?"

The thief's question caught Hakuba off guard, causing him to stutter, "P-pardon?"

"Why wouldn't you brag about it?" Kaito asked, honestly curious.

"I thought we were solving your problem," Hakuba stated in attempt to distract Kaito by turning the conversation back to the matter at hand.

"We were," Kaito replied bluntly.

"Then why are you asking me this?"

"Nearly every girl in our class stares at you with hearts in their eyes every morning," Kaito stated as though he'd observed this phenomena several times before deciding the it was a fact, "as I figure it you have reasonable bragging rights."

"Not compared to the infamous Kaitou Kid," Hakuba replied, half muttering.

"True, but Kaitou Kid has no room to brag either," The thief stated, "It's not like any of my fans know anything about the real me."

"I see..." The detective trailed off, not really sure how to reply. Then after an awkward moment of silence he spoke up again, "Please tell me you aren't leaving her alone somewhere?"

Kaito's eyes widened as he let loose a short string of curses at the realization that Hakuba was absolutely right, he'd left his wife alone while he'd come to the bathroom to sort out his own problems and have this completely useless conversation with Hakuba.

"So you are?" Hakuba asked once the cursing had died down.

Kaito hesitated, "I went to the bathroom... to clear my head..."

"Baka."

"Well what would you do if you kissed someone who you've thought of as your mom for eight years and your head starts to felt like it's about to explode?" Kaito retorted.

"Maybe ask for an Advil," Hakuba replied casually.

"I don't think Advil quite covers feeling like you've matured about ten years in the span of a few seconds," The man turned teen responded dryly.

"I'd still try."

"Advil doesn't solve everything!"

Hakuba sighed, "It would at least help with the headache."

"I'm hanging up!" Kaito shouted, and he did -hang up that is- storming out of the bathroom moments later, though he managed to regain his calm by the time he made it back to the table.

Chikage smiled the moment he returned, "So, how much did you remember Honey?"

He was a bit surprised by the question but he didn't let it show on his face, "You could tell?"

"What else would make you react like that?" She mused

"Good point."

"So...?" She trailed off, clearly still wanting to know what her beloved had managed to remember to make him have such an extreme reaction.

"Pretty much everything..." He trailed off looking nostalgic for a moment as he thought back on what he had remembered, "When we first met, our first date...when I proposed, our wedding..."

Chikage looked at him with an exaggerated bewildered expression and gasped, "You didn't blush!"

"Well I'm a bit older mentally now," He smiled, "It'll take more than that to make me blush."

"Damn. The blushing was cute," she replied with a pout.

He blushed, apparently he hadn't expected to be called 'cute' by his loving wife... not that he could blame her, even if he'd gotten some of his memory back he was still physically sixteen it really couldn't be helped that someone her age would consider him 'cute'.

Her smile grew, "Adorable."

"Shouldn't I be handsome, or charming... or something?" Kaito complained, knowing he really wasn't going to win, if she wanted to call him cute she was going to whether he liked it or not.

"While your still a teenager you're 'cute'," Chikage responded fairly.

"I had to put up with this last time I was a teenager from my mother and now my own wife does the same..." he sighed, half muttering to himself. At least he knew she would stop when he grew up again - If he grew up again.

"But you really are cute..."

"But it's demeaning..." He whined, sounding every bit as young as he looked.

"Alright sweetie, I'll try," She said, leaning over to give a light kiss on his cheek, "But no promises."

He smiled at her trying his hardest not to blush, "Thank you."

The rest of the night continued as you would expect it to, compliments and romantic lines crossed the table as if the married couple where using them to play hot potato, and when they returned home there was kissing -lots of kissing. But that's their own business.


	9. Now or Never

**Sorry it's been so long, I've been distracted by all kinds of issues and such and really didn't have much inspiration for this story at the time so it kinda got the back burner... but at last I've brought out a new chapter!(Thank you Syrus07 for all the help . I really couldn't have done it without you!)  
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**Geez why did I ever start writing this story in third person... it was okay for the prologue part since I was just trying to avoid using Kaito/Toichi's name for effect there but it's been pretty annoying ever since because I prefer writing in first person (even if third is good for describing emotions and actions)... oh well by the time it had become actually annoying it was too late to change it... I don't know why I'm even bothering to rant about it now.**

**I had to listen to a bunch of love songs while writing this just so I could put the right amount of emotion into it... So I really hope you enjoy it and pleeeeaaaase review!  
**

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Kaito -or rather Toichi- was glad to have so many of his old memories back but it actually did nothing to help the situation. Even if he now could better remember who he had been his current sense of identity was completely confused. Sure, he knew that he was Toichi but his recent years of being Kaito were also part of who he was (is?) and he wasn't entirely sure which part of him he was more of.

The name and identity of Kaito didn't belong to him but he didn't feel that he could consider himself to be completely Toichi anymore, if anything he was a weird mix of the two. Kaitoichi perhaps? No... that just sounds stupid, more like Kaito Kid, as that was the only thing that seemed to have remained constant across both identities besides his his love of magic and knack for getting into trouble.

Even if he had no longer considered himself to be Kaito it wouldn't change the fact that 'Toichi' was officially dead and the real 'Kaito' had made a new life for himself as Kudo Shinichi (and yet another new life as Conan). It'd be far to difficult to explain the circumstances to whatever government official he would need to in order to be legally recognized as Toichi rather than Kaito if not solely for the sake of his marriage then also so he wouldn't have to go through high school a second time. In other words he was more or less stuck in his current situation as rejuvenated father taking the place of his own son.

Therefore he was left with no choice but to sit in his desk at school and 'learn' things he now knew he already knew no matter how mundane and monotonous it became.

That isn't to say he made any attempt to act in the same way he had acted when he was 'Kaito', the return of his early memories had changed him enough that it wouldn't feel right to be acting as he had been.

All of his classmates were in awe over Kaito's sudden maturity, however rather than believing that Kaito himself had changed they were under the impression that he was just acting to line up for a trick and that he would be back to the normal Kaito before they knew which way was up.

Hakuba knew that the change was because of his friend's returned memories (as he'd been told during the course of the phone call the previous night), and seemed to enjoy the company of the new more mature Kaito -which honestly shocked their classmates even more as they'd grown used to strange arguments as to whether or not Kaito was Kaitou Kid flying between the two, to see then calmly chatting about the whether or whatever they were talking about made them almost believe that Kaito had been replaced by an alien or something.

Aoko on the other hand was distressed by her 'childhood' friend's new persona, she understood why it was happening -that he was simply growing closer to being the person that he was supposed to have been. She'd even wish on several occasions for him to become more mature but now that it was happening she couldn't help but feel that he was drifting away from her. The Kaito she saw getting along with Hakuba wasn't the Kaito that she knew and had grown to love. She knew that she would have to take her chances before it became too late, she knew she had to make the first move.

She called him up to the roof during lunch period, making certain to tell him to come alone.

And so there they stood, just the two of them, on the roof. Lunch period wouldn't last long, Aoko gathered her courage.

"Kaito I um-"

"Toichi, actually," He corrected. He wasn't even entirely sure why he bothered to correct it when only moments ago he'd been wondering if he even had right to use the name he'd practically abandoned eight years ago. How could he justify correcting someone who'd called him by the wrong name when he himself wasn't even certain that he could say he could even consider himself to truly be the person the name belonged to anymore?

"You're still Kaito to me!" Aoko proclaimed. The certainty with which she said it surprised Kaito, there was no doubt that in her eyes he was and always would be 'Kuroba Kaito', her childhood friend. With a nervous swallow she continued, "It doesn't matter if you've changed, you're Kaito. So even if it's just me, let me call you Kaito, okay?"

Still taken aback by her bold proclamation he nodded, permitting her to call him by the name that wasn't really his to begin with.

"Kaito I... that is... I mean..." For having had such a bold start Aoko was beginning to lose her nerves.

She couldn't help stumbling over her words, there was no correct way to say what she was trying to say. What had she expected to do, walk up to him and say 'I know you're happily married with a child and that you're the thief my father has been chasing for years but I love you so will you go out with me?', something like that would just sound ridiculous, he probably wouldn't even take her seriously even if she could find a 'right' way to say it.

"What is it Aoko?"

Kaito had a sinking feeling that he already knew where this was going, where else could something like this go besides a confession... but even if he knew that it didn't help that he had no idea how to respond. He knew he loved Aoko, he'd loved her nearly the entire time he'd spent as Kaito, but he also loved Chikage, enough that he'd married her all those years ago.

That was the ultimate problem wasn't it? If he accepted Aoko's confession then it would mean he'd decided to be Kaito, if he rejected it and stayed with Chikage then he was choosing to be Toichi... but which girl/woman did he truly love now? Who did he _want _to be?

"I... I um... I lo..." She was starting to blush as she continued to trip over her own tongue. She turned her face, too nervous to continue looking him in the eyes, "I la- I mean... I um... It's not like I..."

Kaito couldn't help but notice that Aoko's blushing was making her look very cute, he finally understood what Chikage had been saying the night before... though he still refused to admit that he could be described accurately with the word 'cute'. He shook his head in attempt to toss the thought from his mind, it wasn't important right now. He could think about blushing later, he had much more important things to be focusing on at the moment.

"I like... no I mean... I um... oh whatever!" Aoko said, looking determined. If she was going to this it would be now, she was counting on ever having a second chance, this was it.

Aoko looked at Kaito and he looked back at her, in the moment when their eyes met neither said a word, there was just silence.

"Kaito, I love you."

That was it. Short, sweet, and to-the-point. Nothing drawn-out or extravagant. She simply said it then continued to hold him with her gaze as if that alone would tell him just how much she meant it, as if it would prove she was deathly serious.

"Aoko I-"

"I know!" She cut him off, the blush on her face flushed to a bright pink, "I know you're married and you like Chikage-san and you have the real Kaito and all but... but I _really_ love you."

She managed to sum up his troubles with a single sentence.

He was married, not just married they had a child too... but that didn't change the fact that he was a teenager right now. He could argue all day that he was really forty and that he had memories that would not normally belong to a person of his current physical stature but when it all came down to it he was a teenager and his teenage hormones were making all of this more complicated then it needed to be.

"Aoko," Kaito cleared his throat, "All of this is really complicated... can I have some time to think about it? I'd like to sort out how I feel about all of this before I say anything."

"No!" Aoko shouted, a desperate tinge entering her voice. More quietly she continued, "Please... just, give me an answer... I need to know."

If more time passed she knew he could only gain more memories, he would drift farther from being her Kaito. She couldn't let that happen, if she couldn't get an answer now then there was no hope that she would ever be able to be the one by his side. It was now or never.

Kaito could tell she wasn't going to just him go, she was determined to get an answer from him... he sighed, offering her a shy smile as he spoke, "Fine, If you really have to know right now: I like you Aoko."

He watched as a smile began to stretch across her face only to recede moments later as she realized he'd said 'I like you'. Not 'I _love _you' but rather 'I _like _you'.

She told him that she _loved_ him, but his answer was that he _liked _her.

Tears started to form at the edge of Aoko's eyes as her knees became weak and soon gave way causing her to collapse onto her hands and knees on solid surface of the roof. She'd lost, it was all over.

He stood there for a moment as she cried, contemplating whether or not he should try to comfort her (or at least help her up from the ground) but he ultimately realized that as this was entirely his fault any reassurance he gave would seem utterly meaningless and his presence was probably only making the problem worse.

Hesitantly he went down the stairs and returned to the classroom.

"Saguru, could you-" He started, having approached his good friend immediately after entering the room.

Hakuba cut him off, "Since when do you call me 'Saguru'?"

"We're good friends, it seems appropriate... Oh never mind that! It's not important!" Kaito retorted unable to keep up his usual mask, "Aoko is on the roof crying, please comfort her for me..."

"Wha-what?" Hakuba asked, no doubt surprised by the sudden strange request.

"Just do it," Kaito stated, adding as an afterthought, "Please."

Hakuba looked at Kaito for a moment, trying to figure out what could have happened for Kaito to be such a mess of emotions and for Aoko to be left crying on the roof. It took only a fraction of a second to realize what must've happened, Hakuba rushed to the roof right away.


	10. Identity

**Hurray! We've now managed to solve most of Kaito's problems but that doesn't mean this story is over! There's another person that's deeply involved in all of this, and he has some abnormalities in his circumstance to take care of as well~!  
**

**This chapter feels kinda short because doesn't have much dialouge... but I didn't want to move on to the next scene yet so this is all you get for now, sorry~ I'll try to make the next chapter a bit longer.  
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**As usual I thank everyone for reading, and ask that you'd please review.  
**

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Conan refused to accept that Kuroba Kaito/Toichi could be his father, he had no recollection of ever being 'Kuroba Kaito' the opposite actually, he had memories of growing up as Kudo Shinichi. He hated to admit that there was any possibility that his memories could be fake, it was entirely possible but it didn't seem likely at all.

However he couldn't ignore that Kid really had nothing to gain from pretending to be his real father anyway, . By that reasoning the thief was more likely than not telling the truth if only because it'd just be a pointless lie otherwise.

Ultimately the realization that his entire life up to this point had just been a huge lie -a conspiracy even- made no real difference at all. It didn't matter if he was really Kudo Shinichi or Kuroba Kaito it wouldn't change the fact that in his current situation he was Edogawa Conan, even so he had every intention to return to the life he had been living as Shinichi as soon as possible. He didn't care that he may or may not have attained immortality in being poisoned, he wasn't going to keep Ran waiting for him any longer than he had to even if 'Shinichi' didn't really exist.

He wondered for a moment if he should tell her that he'd found out that 'Kudo Shinichi' was a fake person, he could call her and say that he'd figured it out while he was working on an important case... the pint sized detective shook his head, he couldn't tell her -not when he was so unsure of it himself.

He couldn't be sure unless he obtained the memories that he was apparently missing... but how would he do that. It wasn't like detective work, he couldn't just go around looking for clues and reasoning to piece his memory together, it just didn't work that way. To recover lost memories typically a person would have to overcome whatever it was that caused the memory loss or there would be some kind of stimulus that could recover the displaced memory.

He had no idea where to start as far as regaining his memories was concerned so he decided it may be better to take a different approach; he would simply try to see if there was anything that could prove that Kudo Shinichi had existed before eight years ago, if he could do that then it would at least prove that Kudo Shinichi wasn't a fake person and that Kid may have been playing an extremely odd and pointless prank

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth..." he quoted, he'd already muttered it to himself at least five times but it made no difference, even quoting the great Sherlock Holmes himself he was bringing himself no closer to discovering the truth of the matter.

He had memories, it's possible they're fake. He'd gone to Teitan elementary, he even still had his old uniform...no, he hated to admit it but it would be too easy for his parents to fake records and acquire a uniform. There was always Ran, she was his childhood friend... they'd known each other forever, could she be the proof that he'd existed? No, assuming his memory loss hadn't been caused by some sort of traumatic event like Kid's had then it's possible that whoever had tampered with his memories could have easily tampered with hers as well... though why they would do that he wasn't entirely sure.

"Eliminate the impossible... eliminate the impossible... eliminate the impossible..." he continued to mutter as if it would somehow help him concentrate, "Elimina- wait... Hakase. He's lived next to my parents for years, surely he would notice if there was suddenly a child in their house when they hadn't had one before. Even if it's still possible for his memories to have been manipulated (which would make this a much larger conspiracy than I'd ever imagined) it's still worth asking."

He told Ran that he was going to Agasa-hakase's house to play a new game and was out the door in a flash, within minutes he'd arrived.

The small detective explained to Haibara and Hakase that Kaitou Kid had insisted that he was his real father and that Kudo Shinichi was a person that had apparently been made up in order to keep it a secret that Kuroba Toichi was still alive, he made sure to let them know that he had no proof that any of it was true so he didn't really believe it... but their reactions surprised him.

"That would explain it," Haibara had said, sounding rather unimpressed, "Back when it was unconfirmed whether or not Kudo Shinichi had died because of Apotoxin4869 I'd taken a look at your records some of the earliest ones seemed too normal, things like your height and weight were filled out in exact accordance with the average but then there was more deviation from eight years ago on... If Kudo Shinichi hadn't existed until that point then it makes perfect sense."

He wasn't entirely sure what to say about that... if she'd had evidence that his records were faked then why didn't she tell him a long time ago? Sure she probably had no reason to believe that Kudo Shinichi wasn't a real person besides that, she probably just didn't think about it all that much.

But even so it was Hakase's reaction that had surprised him the most, "You don't remember?"

Conan's eyes widened, "Don't remember what... exactly?"

Hakase then explained that it had been around eight years ago when a woman had come to the Kudo house with a child in tow, he recognized the woman as she'd occasionally visited the Kudo house before with her husband but he didn't know either of them himself, he did however know the child who had occasionally visited and played with Ran Mouri whenever he did. The woman had apparently asked Shinichi's parents -no, Yusaku and Yukiko Kudo- if they would take care of him as if he were their own child. The Kudo couple had been thinking about having their own child for a while and it was quite clear that whatever was happening was very important so they accepted, and since then 'Kudo Shinichi' had been the son of Yusaku and Yukiko Kudo.

In the face of this odd but undeniable proof that 'Kudo Shinichi' was completely fabricated Conan sighed. After all he'd half been expecting to hear something like this, it was the reason why he'd come over in the first place. It was true, he was Kuroba Kaito. His memories still differed with the truth on this point, which worried him a bit, but he didn't really miss the memories he couldn't remember, sure he was a bit curious but it's not like he was going to go back to being Kuroba Kaito if he was able to regain those memories that would be just as difficult as returning to being Shinichi Kudo would be as the moment.

At least he knew who he really was now. He now knew for a fact that he had spent more than half his life unwittingly pretending to be someone that he wasn't. The people he thought were his parents had in fact adopted him. The person he'd thought he was hadn't actually existed before eight years ago. His real father was an internationally wanted thief and a magician, and his real mother had also been an internationally wanted thief in the past. His father was now a teenager while he himself was left as a child. It was a bit strange just how little of this actually bothered him.

"Still... I'm not really sure why you can't remember all of this," Agasa-hakase commented.

Conan shrugged, seeming unconcerned even though it was his own memory, " I guess I'll find out eventually."

With that Conan had left, it was about time for him to get back home anyway, Ran would be worried if he were late for dinner.


	11. Remembering

**Well it's the chapter I've been anticipating for a while now, so I won't ramble to long up here. It was supposed to be pretty silly but it turned out being more serious than I'd thought it would be, there's still a bit of silliness in there for you though.  
**

**As usual I thank everyone for reading, and ask that you'd please review. ^v^  
**

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It was only a day later that Conan's parents appear- no they weren't his parents he had to remind himself, they were Yusaku and Yukiko Kudo, the nice people who had taken him in after his father had replaced him. They had of course came because news of Conan's kidnapping only a few days prior -perpetrated by his father no less- had finally reached their ears and they knew that the time had finally come that they would have to reveal to him the truth.

Conan hadn't expected them to come, he'd been kidnapped plenty of times before without them reacting, it seemed so strange for them to be reacting now of all times. After thinking about it for a while he realized it made sense that they'd come, after all they must've had a pretty good idea as to what had happened.

You can probably imagine what must've happened upon the Kudo couples arrival; though it is recorded here anyway in case you are simply that dense.

"Shin-chan!" Conan's not-mother shouted as she burst into the professor's house where the not-child had happened to be and nearly squished her adopted son by wrapping him in a motherly hug.

"Kaa-san…" He choked out, referring to her as though she were his mother out of habit, "I… can't breathe…"

After a second more she let go, leaving him to gasp for air as though he'd nearly drowned. It was at that point that Kudo Yusaku entered the room and offered the teen turned child a weak smile as if to say 'sorry about that son,' or something fatherly like that.

For a while there was a silence and Conan took the opportunity to remind himself that these two parental figures were not his parents and that they had simply been taking care of him at the request of his real mother for as long as he could remember.

"So you've learned the truth?" Yusaku asked, he sounded tense as if he weren't sure how to feel. On one hand he was –in a way- losing a son, but at the same time he knew that if Shinichi knew he was really Kaito then there could be no doubt that his old friend had managed to regain his own memory.

Conan nodded, there wasn't really anything more that needed to be said.

"Toichi -your father- regained his memories then?" Yusaku also asked, making sure that he'd guessed correctly and that Conan/Shinichi/Kaito hadn't realized his true identity by some other means. He probably pointed out the fact that Toichi was Conan's real father only to help himself stop thinking of the boy as his own son.

"Last I saw he was still missing a lot," Conan replied with a casual shrug, "He's kind of acting like a teenager so I don't think he has enough memories to really be considered an adult."

Of course that was no longer the case as since the last time that Conan had seen Kaito/Toichi it had been before Toichi had wound up recovering a majority of his memory during his dinner with Chikage, but Conan had no way of knowing that and natural ly Yusaku had no way of knowing that Conan's information was false. The novelist nodded understanding that his friend probably didn't remember him yet.

"Speaking of memories... what about mine?" The pint-sized detective asked, hoping that his not-parents would have some clue as to why he had absolutely no recollection of his true identity. Though he hadn't really expected them to know anything more about it than he did, after all if he were to assume it was because of some kind of trauma then it had to have either happened before or shortly after he began living with the Kudo's the later being the more likely of the two.

"Oh that's easy," Yukiko stated, smiling a bit as if she had been anticipating the chance to say this for quite some time, "hypnosis."

"Hypnosis?" Conan repeated dully, clearly not believing it at all. He thought about the possibility that she was telling the truth but rejected it immediately, there was no way that she was seriously telling him that eight years ago they'd hypnotized him so that he would think he was Kudo Shinichi and that hypnotism was still in effect to this day. It simply wasn't possible.

"Hypnosis," She confirmed.

Conan could see that she completely intended to insist on the absurd lie so he turned to Yusaku as if to say 'she doesn't seriously expect me to believe that, does she?' Yusaku, however, only offered him a small nod so the boy gave up on the silent communication altogether.

"You're joking right?"

"Of course not Shin-chan, why would I ever joke about something like that?" Yukiko replied with an air of innocence that seemed superficial coming from someone who'd once been an actress.

Conan could think of plenty of things that she'd taken much less seriously than the situation called for in the past -his current stature for one- but figured that he was better off not mentioning anything. Instead he said with a sigh, "Seriously?"

"I was a bit surprised myself that it was so successful," Yusaku said in confirmation.

Conan couldn't help but facepalm with the realization that the reason he'd never been able to remember was such a stupid reason.

Lately Conan had realized that his life had been just one stupid occurrence after another, he'd planned to tell Ran how he felt about her at Tropical Land only to run into a murder case, he'd been poisoned only to turn into a six year old instead of dying, he'd been concerned over the loss and replacement of his memory only to find that eight years ago the Kudo couple had hypnotized him so he'd think he was their son. It was like the plot of some lame gag manga the members of the Shonen Tantei who were actually children would probably enjoy.

"It's possible to undo the hypnosis right?" Conan asked, though he mas more asking them to undo it than asking if it were possible, of course it was possible to undo it Yukiko and Yusaku weren't so irresponsible as to seal away their friend's son's memories forever.

So it came to be that Conan was sitting in a chair in front of Yukiko who had squatted down to be just above eye-level with him, she had tied a ten yen coin to a string which he followed with his eyes as she swung it back and forth. Conan continued to hold a firm expression to show that he honestly didn't believe that it would work as Yukiko began muttering things like 'You are no longer Kudo Shinichi, You are Kuroba Kaito,' until he realized that he was actually regaining memories that he hadn't known he'd had.

It hurt his head. All his fake memories from before eight years ago overlapped with the real ones in a mismatch of identity, even if he had more memory as Kudo Shinichi he knew which memories were real and he accepted them along with the truth.

The things he could remember all seemed so trivial but they were his precious memories nonetheless. All the magic shows he'd gone to see either with his father or to watch his father, he loved magic even if it was just an illusion, he found it a bit disheartening that in his time as 'Shinichi' he'd grown to find it so boring. When he had met Aoko at the clock tower in Ekoda all those years ago and few meetings they'd had after that, sad that he hadn't ever seen her after that until just the other day, but he had Ran now. The love that his mother and father had shown him as a child, it wasn't all that different than how the Kudo couple had acted towards him in his memories from before and in the years since... they really had treated him as if he were their own son...

"Are you okay, Shin-chan?" Yukiko asked. Conan had been making a strange expression as he tried to sort out his memories, but her question immediately snapped him out of it.

He smiled, "I'm fine, Kaa-san, er I mean... Yukiko-o...neechan."


	12. Scheming

**Sorry it's been so long, I've been really busy with other stuff and this just kinda got placed on the back burner again. I'm trying to get better at balancing this out but with as many ongoing stories as I have the one's that I don't have any kind of plan for wind up getting the least attention. Plus I saved it with the word count at 1412 and couldn't bring myself to add any me for a while.  
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**I'm sure y'all have realized it by now but I'm going to continue to refer to Kaito/Toichi as Kaito and Conan/Shinichi/Kaito as Conan in the narration because it's easier to tell who I'm talking about that way... figured I should say it to avoid confusing anyone who assumed that now that Kaito had accepted being Toichi and Conan had accepted being Kaito that they'd be going by their proper names. The only exception is in dialogue where names are honestly anything goes (just try to pay attention to who's speaking, and who it's directed at).  
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**Geez, my sense of humor seems to be lacking lately... maybe I need to read more gag manga. This just feels way too serious... but maybe that's okay cause it's kinda a serious matter... whatever let's just go with it, ne?  
**

**As usual I thank everyone for reading, and ask that you'd please review. ^v^  
**

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Having regained his memory Conan figured it'd be a good idea to let his dad know, even though he had trouble thinking of Kaito/Toichi being his dad... really he had trouble thinking of him as anything other than Kaitou Kid, and it'd likely be quite a while before that changed. Regardless of how he perceived the magician the detective still found himself wanting to call him to tell him the good news, and so that's exactly what he did.

"Hello, Kai-chan," Kaito answered the phone cheerfully, no doubt glad to be hearing from his son, what other reason would he need to be cheerful?

"Hello, Kid," Conan greeted in turn, regretting having called upon hearing the childish nickname by which his father had called him. Conan kind of wished that even though the truth was now known that it didn't mean that anything would change... but maybe nothing had really changed, and it was just the impression that such a thing would change things that would inevitably cause things to wind up changing anyway.

Kaito seemed to be able to sense that his son had been a little bit hesitant to call him anyway and figured that it'd be best to cut right to the chase, "So was there anything in particular that you wanted to talk to me about?"

After a moment's hesitation Conan replied, "I've regained my memories…"

"You have?!" Kaito exclaimed loud enough that Conan had to pull the cellphone from his ear before his father continued, "That's great! I was so worried that you might have misplaced your memories for good!"

"Apparently, it was hypnosis…" Conan reported dryly, figuring that it would be the sort of thing the magician would find amusing, "Okaa-san –I mean Yukiko-oneechan hypnotized me so that I would actually think I was 'Kudo Shinichi' and wouldn't risk my cover being discovered."

Conan's thoughts were proven correct when Kaito let out a little laugh.

"Oh, so that's how it was. That definitely sounds like something she would do," He sounded almost nostalgic as he spoke, which caught Conan off guard because as far as Conan was aware his real-father should have had no recollection of having ever met his fake-mother despite their being master and pupil, though apparently he did.

"You remember her?"

"She's a very difficult person to forget, Kai-chan," he mused.

Conan couldn't find any grounds to argue with that and wound up laughing along with his teenaged father long enough that the Kudo couple began to look concerned.

"So, you're at the professor's house right?" Kaito suddenly asked.

"Er, yes? Why do you ask?"

"Well you wouldn't be able to talk freely at Ran-chan's house and you've got Subaru-san at the Kudo house so I just figured that was where you'd be," Kaito replied with a completely casual tone. It was perfectly logical but it didn't really seem relevant at all that Kaito should know Conan's current location.

Then suddenly there was a knock on the door and Conan had a sneaking suspicion as to why his father may have wanted to know where he was. Of course the person whom the professor soon let in was none other that Kuroba Kaito/Toichi.

He had a much more mature air about him than he'd had the last time that Conan had seen him, but it was still difficult to see him as anything more than an immature teen or a mischievous thief when he walked in with such a broad smile on his face like he'd just pulled a prank and everyone had all fallen right into his trap.

He then lifted Conan up into his arms and hugged him tightly –though not nearly so tightly as Yukiko had- for just long enough to make Conan slightly uncomfortable before setting him back down.

"It's been a while since I was able to do things like that," Kaito attempted to explain.

Conan knew it was true, how long had it been since the two of them had actually had a chance to act like father and son? How long had it been since they'd taken that chance? Eight years, apparently. Though it hadn't seemed to be that long until they realized what they were missing.

If it hadn't been for their unfortunate situations the two of them might have actually been a proper father and son... Conan would have aspired to become a magician like his father and Kaito would have taught his son the ins and outs of magic and would eventually tell him of his secret identity as Kaitou Kid, he might've even given his son the chance to become his successor. But that was just a dream, something that could have been, and might be in some parallel reality.

"I've regained most of my memories too -not quite all- but most, in case you were wondering," Kaito mentioned as he put his son back on the ground.

"You have?" Conan replied, his tone betraying his surprise.

"Of course… you didn't notice?" Kaito asked in response, only slightly disappointed that his manner had apparently not changed enough for his detective son to realize that he was any different than when he was for the most part mentally a teenager.

Sure, he'd noticed some difference in the way the magician carried himself but for whatever reason he hadn't thought that the change was related to his memory, he'd just assumed that his dad had finally decided to act more mature as he and Nakamori-keibu had both insisted he should. Some detective he turned out to be, maybe he should have another go at becoming a magician instead.

"I noticed but… I guess I was a bit preoccupied by my own memories," The small detective replied.

Kaito could understand that, it was difficult to focus on much else after obtaining memories; they were all that seemed to stick in his head for a while until he managed to sort out what goes when chronologically –which in his case was rather difficult to do.

"It's nice to see you Toichi," Yusaku said, interrupting the moment only a little.

Kaito perked up a bit, running over to shake his old friend's hand, "Ah, Yusaku! Thank you for taking care of Kaito while I was gone."

Yusaku smiled, "It's been no trouble."

Which was -of course- true. It had been no trouble for Yukiko and Yusaku to take care of Shinichi, they'd enjoyed every moment of it. Even if the truth was out the two of them still intended to treat Conan as though he were their own son.

"Less trouble than if Chikage had asked you to take care of me instead of him at least," Kaito laughed, "I was almost as bad this time around as my first."

"That's probably true," Yukiko chimed in, adding a little giggle as she remembered a few instances of 'Shinichi' finding his own ways to get into trouble.

"Still, things probably would have turned out rather... interesting if Chikage-san had decided to let us take care of you instead of Shin- I mean Kaito," Yusaku added.

It felt sad that Yusaku had needed to correct the name, but it was true, now that the truth was out it was better not to continue as they had been that would only complicate things more. The boy didn't need two sets of parents, and the Kudo couple had only been asked to take care of him until the situation was fixed anyway, they were never his real family even if they had become like one. The casual conversation continued in spite of these stirring emotions.

"She probably just kept me because she thought it'd increase the chances of me regaining my memory," Kaito said with a shrug, hitting on the true reason.

"Makes sense," Yusaku replied, "If you had been left with us you would have to fake an identity on top of your fake memories of being Kaito, we probably wouldn't have risked the hypnosis though as that would have all but guaranteed you would never get your original memories back... Still even without the hypnosis you probably wouldn't have remembered who you really are."

That much was true as well... if it had been Kaito instead of Conan who'd gone to live with the Kudo's everything likely would have turned out exponentially different than it has, still it's probably for the best that it all went the way it has especially where Apotoxin4869 is concerned.

Suddenly Kaito's phone rang, disturbing the flow of the conversation.

"Ah, excuse me a moment," Kaito said looking at the phone a moment before putting it against his ear, "Hello Aoko, how are you today?"

Kaito had been more surprised by the call then he'd let on as ever since he'd rejected Aoko's confession she had avoided him as best she could. What reason could she have to call him now of all times? He couldn't help but worry that something may have happened.

"Oh me? I'm fine... what? Uh, he's busy with..." Kaito paused for a moment, presumably because Aoko had interrupted him, "Fine, I'll try to set something up, but I can't garuntee anything."

After another brief pause he hung up.

"What was that about?" Conan asked curiously, uncertain what it could possibly be that Aoko could want Kaito to set up for her.

"Aoko want's to meet you," Kaito responded casually.

This confused Conan a little bit, "But we've already met..."

Kaito thought for a moment about his wording before saying, "She met Edogawa Conan, the person she wants to meet is Kudo Shinichi, or Kuroba Kaito... she wasn't really sure which to call you."

Conan couldn't help but wonder why someone he hadn't seen for more than eight years (not counting seeing her as Conan) would suddenly want to see him now. Maybe she wanted to see the real Kaito after learning that the one she'd fallen in love with was a fake, or perhaps she was trying to replace the fake with the genuine article, or maybe... she just wanted some closure on this whole ordeal. Not that it mattered, it wasn't as if he could meet her as Shinichi/Kaito when he was still stuck as a primary schooler.

"But I can't meet her," Conan replied.

"I tried to tell her you were busy with an important case but she just wouldn't hear it," Kaito replied, adding partly as a joke, "You could always just reveal your identity to her, she hasn't given mine away to anyone yet."

"No way, doing that would just put her in danger," Conan retorted, knowing that it wasn't as if her knowing his identity would put her in any more danger than knowing that Toichi was alive as well as the true identity of Kaitou Kid, but he still didn't like the idea of intentionally telling anyone who he was after keeping it a secret for so long.

"Then why not use one of those temporary antidotes?" Kaito asked, "That Haibara girl probably has one lying around here somewhere."

"That could work," Conan replied noncommittally. He had to admit that it was a pretty good idea, the antidote would definitely work. He could go meet with Aoko then he would probably still have some time in his real body left over to talk to Ran, maybe he could even finally tell her the truth about himself.

"Alright, then you handle getting your hands on the antidote, I'll pick 'Conan' up after school tomorrow so that Ran won't be suspicious of your disappearance," Kaito said with his usual air of mischievousness, making the plan concrete.

Yukiko giggled to herself, "What could possibly go wrong?


End file.
